Tips to speed up bedtime?

[PerpetualStudent]

Hey all. So I have a (just turned) 2 yr old DS and it feels like bedtime routine is taking forever and I wondered if anyone had any good tips for speeding things up?

To give a quick oveview of what we do now:
6:30pm toddler dinner, eating as a family if poss
7pm sometimes a post dinner calm play or 'tidy up time' with toys
7:15pm bathtime, including teeth brushing (often a battle)
7:45pm Into nappy and PJs (another battle)
8-9pm+ (I left the bedroom at 9:55pm last night!?) Stories and couple of lullabies and then (here's the killer) needing to be there until he drops off - have started having some success with gradual retreat, but all hell still breaks loose if we leave the room before he's dropped off.

Looking at it I would say the 2 big time drains are transitions between each stage, (Doesn't want to get in the bath, doesn't want to get out of it etc etc) and the having to sit there until full sleep. Any thoughts on dealing with those?!

I know it looks a late routine by many people's standards anyway, but would be difficult to bring it forward with childcare/work, and when we have tried it just makes the whole ordeal longer overall! (Also he never wakes before 7am, and I don't want to mess with that!)
Would just be amazing if my evening could start in the 8pm, rather than 10pm hour!!
TIA

What is your view of what gradual withdrawal means? What are you doing to progress towards independant sleep?

In terms of the routine up to getting in the cot - par it right down so that bedtime means going to sleep. At the moment "bedtime" involves an hour or two faffing.

Dinner, play, tidy up - that's not bedtime. I would say from bathtime onwards is bedtime routine and should be about 30 minutes at most. If you skip the bath, 10 minutes.

Once in the cot begins "settling time" and should be taking 5-10 minutes. 15m at the absolute most.

So to reduce bedtime routine, skip the bath if it's not relaxing. A bath is not necessary every night anyway. We do a bath 2 or 3 times a week. And baths don't need to be at night.

Also alter the timing of PJs on, if that's a flashpoint. Bring PJs downstairs and change into them after dinner, for example. Or have bath and PJs all done before dinner.

Then stop the multiple things that happen before bed. So it is just upstairs > teeth > 1 story > into cot. End of bedtime, start of settling time. You can do that in 10 minutes easily.