Saturday, January 7, 2012

So Sleepy, but no Sleep

As I type, a certain wee one is in her crib screaming. And I don't mean crying; she's literally screaming. My once-stellar-napper has evolved into more of a nightmare napper.

What am I doing wrong?

It all started at Thanksgiving when we were out of town for nine days and Anna got a cold and ear infection while we were gone. All bed time routines went out the window. When we got back, I felt like we were starting all over again with sleep training. Anyway, she still does great at night: put on lotions, zip up jammies, take a bottle, lay down, out for the night.

But nap time . . . . ayeayeaye.

I rock her 5-10 minutes with her paci just to transition her from playtime to sleepy time. We often read a book. Then I lay her down awake. Until 9 months, she did just fine going to sleep on her own. Now, it's party time in the crib for an hour and then screaming/crying for another hour. Today, she only napped one hour and that was after I caved and rerocked her. It's like she can't put herself to sleep anymore during nap time, but has no problem doing that at night.

My doc thinks I should stick with two naps until she's one.

Advice?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So sorry you're in a rough patch! I totally understand. Jude is having a hard time with naps right now too, and it came out of the blue. I don't have a lot of advice other than to tell you that Elliott took two naps until 13 months and Jude is just now transitioning to 1 nap a day at 20 months. I think if you stick to your guns for a while she'll eventually be retrained to go to sleep without a fuss. It's horrible while it's happening...especially when you had a great sleeper before!

Tanya said...

I've just started training Kara to nap in her crib. She's always done great sleeping at night, but I've always been her human mattress for naptime. I'm a sucker, and nursing just makes it so natural.

So I have no advice, just commiseration. It's so sad hearing her cry, even though I know the only thing wrong is that she's sleepy.