Our Nighttime Routine

Night time has always been a HUGE struggle around here. Always 2 steps forward and 1 step back when we make progress for a peaceful bedtime. With Lucille in full day pre school, we were forced to kick our efforts up a notch.
I'm not going to pretend bedtime is perfect every night. But we're doing a lot better than we used to, thanks to our below schedule/ check list.

Peter gets home a bit after 4:30 and our wind down and bedtime routine starts shortly after. At 5:00 if any electronics are on, we shut those off. If anyone needs a bath, this is the time we do that... otherwise, it's playtime for an hour while mommy and daddy get dinner ready.
Dinner is at 6 and kicks off our night time check list.  The goal is for everyone to be snuggled into bed between 7 and 7:30.
We've made a checklist with pictures of our family doing all these things. I put it in a protective plastic sleeve so we can check off items as we go along. It works really well for my kids. It helps them to know what to expect next. It also takes the power off us as the parents. We're following the list right along with the kids. No risk for a power struggle if we're not the ones dictating instructions and it comes from a piece of paper (even though we obviously made the paper.) Here are the items on our list.

Dinner: We do an after school snack at 3:30 and the kids usually eat quite a bit then so dinner is actually a pretty small meal for them.
Family Story Time: We used to always do books in bed. But some days it turns into asking for another book, and another, and another... and sometimes even one story would wind the kids up. So, a bigger gap in time between the story and trying to sleep seemed smart.
Clean Up Time: This one is for me. Despite making progress with Lucille and Lennon, Truman doesn't get to sleep until about 9 and then I'm trapped underneath him... So coming down to clean usually isn't an option. And I hate coming down at 6 am to yesterday's mess everywhere. We often use Alexa to listen to music while we clean.
Lotion, Pajamas and Pick Out Tomorrow's Clothes
Brush Teeth and Potty
In Bed

Other than a checklist the biggest advice I can give is to make sure you stay calm. And trust me, there are nights I cannot accomplish this. When they are insisting they're thirsty, need to pee again, aren't tired, heard a noise... on the inside I'm screaming "go to sleep!!!! For fuck's sake, close your freaking eyes, stop talking and just sleep!!!" But showing any form of agitation, annoyance or straight up anger, it'll just wind the kids up more. So, whenever possible, take a deep breaths and calmly just keep encouraging your little one to settle down and rest.
We wake Lucille up at 6:30 to get ready for school. Of course, if she has to be woken that means she hasn't slept enough. So, I always feel good the mornings that she wakes up herself around 6:20 or so. I'd say we have about a 60% success rate. So, an expert I am not. But I've spent LOTS of time trying to perfect this nightly routine, so I thought I'd share our current arrangement.