Sorry, this might be a long post...
Can anyone help me sort my evenings out - they are beyond a joke now and I am at the end of my tether. DD is a lot better at nighttime these days, but getting her to sleep in the evening is increasingly becoming a longer and longer battle. We always have exactly the same nighttime routine - bath, go in her bedroom with dimmed lights, go in sleeping bag, 2 books, bottle, cuddle to sleep with toddler calm CD on. Only problem is these days she fights going to sleep so so hard - so she'll be in my arms yawning but will hit her head with her hand, shout, fidget, ask for a drink, do whatever she needs to do to stay awake. If I put her in her cot when she's sleeping or even lightly asleep, she jumps straight up and jumps up and down in her cot shouting and crying until we pick her back up.
We can't go on like this - it's 21:50 and she's still awake - this is pretty typical, having started bath etc. at 7. DH and I have absolutely no evening together - I do chores and grab some food while he's doing bath and bottle, then we swap and he gets some food etc., then by the time she's asleep it's time for us to go to bed as DH gets up before 6 for work.
On nap timings - she usually wakes as 7 ish, is ready for a nap about 9:30/10, usually has an hour. Then ready for another nap about 2, again usually an hour but sometimes 2. Then bath etc. at 7. She's starting to learn to walk (has taken a couple of steps) and she's got 2 back teeth through and 2 more coming so I guess that might have something to do with it but touch wood her sleep isn't too disturbed at night so I hadn't put it down to teeth.
Other people seem to be able to put their baby to bed in their cot sleepy but awake, and then you hear them murmuring on the baby monitor until they fall asleep on their on own. What am I doing wrong? I really really don't want to do controlled crying / CIO but I feel like I'm running out of options.