taking FOREVER to sleep and nursing thru the night!

[strmis]

It. Takes. Forever. To get DD to fall asleep. Tonight we started at 8, she finally went down around 10 with DH. We have a routine (bath, brush, story and, recently, a little bit of Charlie brown xmas ) Lately its taking forever to get her to sleep. Just a phase? She has grown almost an inch in the last few weeks!

We've done naps during the day, no naps, short naps. We've put her to bed early (7pm) AND late (10pm) and everything in between. She's relatively mellow but I do try to get her to run and play (most of the time she'd rather play with play-doh or dolls or read).

It all results in the same thing. She is used to going to bed late (around 9:30-10) because I work late and wanna play with her. 

On top of all this she has been nursing constantly (3-5 times a night). Its getting frustrating. urgh.. I keep telling myself that "this too shall pass" and that I'll miss these things when she is all grown, but in the moment it gets really annoying!

Any other advice or tips?BTW.. After about 30 mins I leave and let DH take over and all I hear for the next 20 mins is "I WAAAANT MAAAAH-MEEEEE" complete with kicking, screaming, and of course, crying.

I know there are a few threads out there on this I am eyeing, but just wanted to lay out my situation without hijacking other threads out there.  HELP!!

[lifeguard]

No suggestions - just commiseration. Ds is taking 1.5-2.5 hours to fall asleep every night. It's exhausting & leaving me with exactly ZERO time to myself in a day.

[NSmomtobe]

My son is the same way. Sometimes I wonder why we bother with a bedtime routine as he doesn't seem to know he is supposed to sleep at the end of it and it is time consuming to spend 1-2 hours each night trying to get him to sleep. So I give up and give him to DH to hold until he falls asleep.