urrently symptom free. Although she does have bad wind at night. Could this be another allergy perhaps?
My DS struggled with this a lot with dairy/soya allergies. However it can also just be little tummies adjusting to solid food. Has she been on solids a while and did you notice any changes?
Is she going to bed to early perhaps? Do I need to do things later and give another nap perhaps?
I don't think so. She's having roughly a 12h day with two naps which I would say is fine for her age. It may be that she needs a little adjustment once she is sleeping better at night as she might not be quite so tired in the daytime, but I don't think that's the cause of all her unsettledness.
OK so a plan....are you keen to have her nap in her bed in the day or are you ok to go with pram naps? I ask because it's possible to do nap and night sleep differently - I know several kids who only napped in the pram but would settle just fine in bed at night. It's really up to you what you'd prefer - benefits of having her nap in bed are that you can actually properly have some 'you' time when she is asleep and she gets more chances to practice her new way of getting to sleep, but on the other hand it can be quite flexible having a LO who will nap out and about and naps are often a bit harder to crack than nights. What's your feeling?
Essentially though you need to come up with a list of steps that gets you from where you are now (rocking to sleep and then putting down?) to where you want to be (I assume putting down fully awake and have her settle herself). A key sleep phrase is really useful too e.g. "night night, go to sleep". So it could go something like:
step 1 - hold, but not rock, to sleep in arms
step 2 - hold her cradled in bed - so something like lying her down with your arm kind of cradled around her body so she has the security of you there as usual but on the bed
step 3 - lay in bed and hold your hand on her until asleep
step 4 - lay in bed and hold hand on until drowsy, then stay next to bed until asleep
step 5 - hand on until calm, the remove hand but stay next to bed
step 6 - lay in bed and just sit next to bed
step 7 - sit halfway to the door
step 8 - sit in the doorway
step 9 - sit outside
Basically making small steps each time so not much changes but over a period of days/weeks you keep moving forwards until you are where you want to be. Reassuring all the time with your voice and sleep phrase. She doesn't have to be 100% totally comfortable at the next stage before you push things on a bit - obviously take it at what feels like the right pace but don't get stuck just because you see signs of protest. Keep it calm and consistent and hopefully you will see some progress quite quickly x
