2yr old bedtimes

[Shinynamechange]

Need some help with our 2yr old.
He sleeps through the night, but takes a long time to get to sleep at bedtime.
We have a newborn baby, and think this has put him out.

Previous to baby DS1 would have bath/story/teeth/cuddles with DH and then DH would sit next to him, white noise on, while he settled in his cot. This would take anywhere up to an hour, but generally DS1 would be be calm and drop off with a bit of singing/quiet music and patting.

Since baby the same routine, but now instead of lying calmly in cot DS1 runs up and down, plays, screams - not calm at all!
DH is having to leave the room (after saying night night) to leave him to cry (5mins or so) then go back in and he will settle. If he doesn’t leave the room this can go on for 2 hours and DS gets more and more worked up.

We don’t like leaving him to cry, and have never done this before, but there seems to be no other way to tire him out enough to actually settle.

Any advice? He goes down well at naptime 1-3ish (up no later than 3pm) 1.5hrs sleep generally in day In his cot with no issues.

Hi OP. Could you try the stories at the end of the routine? Use a really boring soothing voice (pretend you're on a hypnotherapy CD!). My DH can get our DD to sleep in one story with his "soothing" monotone...

No definite advice here but I’m wondering about the nap? DS was 2 in May and he’d dropped his daytime nap in March I think. He will occasionally have one still if he’s s bit out of sorts or we are driving mid afternoon, but it definitely impacts on how he goes to sleep. He would only normally nap for max 40 minutes too.

Another one whose DC had to drop their nap before they were 2 otherwise it led to a long drawn out bedtime. As soon as we dropped the nap they both started sleeping a solid 7-7.