If you don't do a bath every night what is in your bedtime routine?

[breatheslowly]

DD can't have a bath every night due to a family history of eczema and I can't be arsed. At the moment we get back at 6pm, give DD a snack and milk and watch the bedtime hour until 7pm. Then get her changed, take her to her room, put on her growbag, do her teeth (a bit of a battle), read a short book, get her to close the door and turn off the light and put her down. It takes all of about 5 minutes and seems too short. We always read the same book as when we tried a different one she wouldn't let it go, went nuts and fell asleep reading it. It just seems too short. She is 16 months. What do you do?

Pretty much the same

Same age, same eczema. Our routine goes something like:

Milk
Teeth (chased between bedroom and bathroom for this)
Undress
Cream all over - takes about 10 minutes if we really go at it and calms him right down
Pyjamas & Growbag
Cot, music, lights out

With memorised Gruffalo and similar rhyming things along the way. We don't do a book upstairs yet, he won't settle long enough on our lap for it.

Overall takes about 20 minutes.

One of the books I read said that the shorter the bedtime routine the better, under 30 mins is ideal. We have nappy free time, then new nappy, pjs on, then into his bedroom for 3 lullabies while I feed him. Straight into cot saying sleepy time now and I leave. 20 mins or shorter if no nappy free time.

Thanks for your feedback, what we are doing looks fine then. I can't wait for DD to be able to follow a whole book. I didn't realise how late it can come.

We had bedtime routine of under 5 minutes at one point (when ds thought tooth-brushing was exciting...)
Telly went to bed at 7.
Ds herded upstairs to brush teeth.
Night-time nappy.
Ds plonked in grobag with favourite blanket, semi-comatose. Out like a light within 10 min.

Wouldn't listen to a story that late. Around 2.5 did bedtime stories sometimes but only since taking off side of cot age 3.0 has he wanted them consistently at bedtime. At 3.4 there's a lot more running around not wanting bed and recently a new exciting phase of sneaking out of bed. Don't get the Little Princess books - they're a bad influence!