Spirited baby plays through nap time

[DC]

Hi, My little girl is 7 months old and she plays away her nap times.  She rarely cries but whines and fusses when I leaver her crib side.   She plays with her feet or hands, she crawls around, she stands up in the crib, she practices her talking and laughs the time away.  So I end up standing over her for two hours wondering how to settle this darling down.  We read stories before nap time and dance to some lullabys.  She has never been a good sleeper but this is getting out of hand.

Our day looks like this:
7 am - wake up and nurse then breakfast
       - activity
9am - stories and dancing for nap time wind down
9:20 - lay her in crib where she happily entertains herself and rarely sleeps.  Sometimes she falls asleep around 10:30
11 am - wake up and nurse
12 noon - lunch
         - activity
2 pm -  stories and dancing for nap time wind down
2:20 - lay her in crib where she happily entertains herself and rarely sleeps. 
4 pm - I give up on trying to get her to sleep so I nurse her and we go play
6 pm - dinner
7 pm - bath followed by stories, lullabys and final nursing.  She is usually asleep by 7:40 - 8:00

[malialeanne]

Hi and welcome to the boards! You will find lots of great info here!

Just looking for a bit more info--does she seem very tired when you put her down? Eye rubbing, etc? Is she generally happy during the day? When she gets up from the brief a.m. nap is she happy or crying and still tired? Is she sleeping well at night?

[DC]

She does seem moderately tired while in my arms just before being put down - yawning and eye rubbing is common, but bounces with energy as soon as she is on the mattress.  She is generally happy during the day but gets cranky in the evening.  Her wake up from the morning nap is sometimes happy but more often crying.  This crying turns to smiles as soon as she is in my arms.  Through the night she may wake a few times but is getting good at putting herself back to sleep.  She usually only needs us to go in and support her efforts to return to sleep once a night.

[malialeanne]

You could try lengthening the first A time of the day gradually to ensure that she's truly tired when you put her down. Sometimes babies know their sleep cues so well that they'll yawn and rub eyes when you take them into their room and prepare them for sleep, even when they're not tired enough to take a good nap. Here's a link to a post with approximate A times for different ages: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652

If you're sure that she's tired when you lay her down, you should let her be if she's happy and not crying. You can't do sleep training techniques like pu/pd on a happy baby, so your best bet is to let her drift off on her own.

Also, I noticed that you have dancing in your wind down routine. It could be that this is stimulating for her, especially if she's spirited. Of course, if it's working for you, don't change it.