Crying before napping?

[mich0902]

Well, I tried something new yesterday.  About 20 minutes before her "supposed" nap time, I held her in my arms but we stayed in the living room, playing with DS and DH.  I just kept her close to me.  Then when she started to rub her eyes on my shoulder, I took her to her bedroom and put her right to bed.  I then closed the curtains, gave her her blankie, sung a lullaby and turned on her white noise machine.  She went to sleep ALL BY HERSELF without a peep in less than 10 minutes.  Same thing in the afternoon, with some fussing, but not much and again this morning.     I don't know, but I think I'm on to something here.  It's like my efforts to calm her actually stimulated her!    I'm not a fan of CIO, but I do want her to get to sleep with as little intervention from me as possible.

So I have another question: what if sometimes this doesn't work?  Won't going to her be inconsistent?  I did try a lot of things and now I want to stick to one way of putting her down for her naps.  But if she cries, and I go to her, it messes everything up and I need to intervene in her falling asleep and I don't want that!

Also, she's getting pretty good at falling asleep on her own, but going back to sleep when she wakes up during the night or after a short nap is still pretty hard.  How do I do that?  Going to her, shhhhing, seems to wake her up more sometimes. 

Thanks so much!!!!!

[momofclaire]

There is a difference between fussing, mantra crying and real crying.  If she is really crying I would go to her.  It sounds like a good windown worked for her.  If you do the same thing for windown at every nap it will work to signal her that it is nap time. My little one finds comfort in this.
Some children can't calm themselves if mom is in the room. 
If she cries after you leave the room I would be sure to decipher what kind of cry it is.  If it is the "I need you cry" go in reassure her.
When you say "going in and shhhing her seems to wake her up more" I think that you are going in too soon.  When she wakes at night do you give her a chance to go back to sleep. Some babies find shhh to stimulating. Mine likes this simple reassurance of a hand on her back.  I hope this helps. Keep us posted.

[weatherlyn]

mich my windown is exactly like yours and it works 90% of the time, and i have just posted a new thread which exactly the same thing you just asked: what do you do when it doesnt work? luca rocks on all fours shouting and i dont know whether to pick him up, leave him to it (isnt that cio?), rubbing back or putting him on his side (preferred sleeping pos) doesnt help . i really dont know what to do when he does this..

[momofclaire]

I think it is important to allow them to do what they need to in order to relax and sleep.  Claire will sometimes yell or moan and I just leave her. I only go in and interfere if she cries that "I need you" cry. 

[Scrapbooker]

My LO had the same problem.  I found that she could get very easily overstimulated and couldn't wind down for sleep and would cry to wind herself down, I guessed.  She would cry when we were about to enter her room too, so I tried to do a wind down before we ever got there.  The one thing that seemed to work for us was walking outside.  I couldn't believe the effect on her.  We walked for about 15 minutes and it was the difference between crying and no crying.  I think the carrying her during that time helped too (in case of bad weather), but outside was the best.  After a while of that working, she stopped crying once we enetered the room and now she only does it while we're making changes, etc.   I do think consistency a the key ingredient also as she'll want to know what's coming up next and that'll help relax her.  If she knows that 10 minutes of crying is coming next than that's what she'll do and be unhappy about it.  Try more positive associations with bedtime.  We were unable to do a winddown in the room as others' suggested because of the crying as soon as she got there.  But, now we're able.  It actually started with us sleeping at someone else's house for the holiday.  Maybe that helped with the positive association or something. Got a friend with a crib?   I have also used PU/PD since then and thought it would never work because shewould never stop crying, but she did after only 45 minutes the first time.  But Pat/sh is better.  I don't believe in CIO either but I can understand the desire to try.  Take Care!!

Good luck!

Laura

[weatherlyn]

mich its funny what our percieved notions of what they need are and what their needs actually are, when luca used to cry before bedtime i would rock and shush and try everything to calm him down, and eventually one day DH just put him in the cot and the crying magically stopped and thats how we realised that DS hates to be held when he is tired he just wants put in his cot with his luvvie and left alone. and it took us ages to figure this out, we felt like such dopes afterwards. all part of the learning curve i guess!!! my hubby says its like speed dating!! (not that he has ever tried it! i hope.... )