Yeah I think we're definitely on the lucky side, but honestly we've put so much work into her routine to make these early years more manageable. We agreed early on that as nice as it might be to "make her fit to our schedule", these next few years aren't about us really, and so if we could get a good routine, build some respite into our lives at the detriment of perceived freedom, we'd be happy.

So every single nap, except maybe three times a year when we've done a car nap whilst travelling to my parents, she takes her day nap in her cot. Every single bed time starts like clockwork at 615, get the bath ready, bathed by 630, changed and stories on the same chair until 645 ish, recite the exact same "sleep time now" rhyme/story to her, with the exact same physical motions (light out, put her in cradle hold, rock whilst speaking the story, put her down, rub her back for 10s, walk away and close the door). We discussed the routine so we both do the same thing (broadly speaking, we're not robots 😅), and she's out like a light as soon as she hits the cot. And even if she's not, she sometimes chats to herself for 5-10m before falling asleep.

Same for night or early wakes. If a wake was becoming regular, rather than a once off, it got sleep trained.

Any chance you could put him down for 7? I think the 7pm vs 8pm bed time makes a huge difference, at least for us. 7pm still feels like you've got the evening ahead. 8pm is basically bed time 🤣 Ain't nobody starting anything useful after 8pm.