Nap problems

[mic74]

Hello, I am the mom of a 9 month old little girl.  Foolishly I had been giving her a bottle to put her to sleep for naps and bedtimes most of the time.  She has never had sleep cues, but I was following the 2.5-3 hours of awake time, giving her a bottle and she would fall to sleep.  For about 3 weeks I was able to quite easily have her go down for her naps awake.  Our schedule for those 3 weeks was approx this:
A 8:00
E 8:30 cereal
E 9:30 bottle
S 10:30 (approx 60-90 mins)
E 12:00 solids
E 1:30 bottle
S 3:00 (approx 60-90 mins)
E 6:00 solids
E 8:00 bottle
S 8:15

This abruptly stopped when she began teething about 3 weeks ago.  Her 2 top front teeth came in at the same time and caused quite a bit of problems.  She began night waking and was impossible to get down for her naps.  I began giving her a bottle to get her to sleep for naps.  Her teeth are now through and I want to get back on track, but she has been fighting me on it.  I am wondering if she is overtired due to the previous night wakings and the current lack of naps she has been having due to our problems.  A vicious circle???

My question:  is there a certain length of time you attempt to get the child down for a nap and then give up and use a prop such as a walk in the stroller?  What happens if it takes 90 mins-120 mins and they are still awake and they are at this point over tired and your whole days schedule is thrown off? Any help or advice would be much appreciated!!!!

[andibig]

are you still using the btl to get her down for sleep?when you get rid of any prop (and yes i can understand why you did it as i ha a nightmare teether) it will take a lot of consistency to break it?
how long would i take?well i don't think i'd be there for 2 hrs trying to get her down for a nap.it really depends on her mood.if shes just playing etc then i'd just leave her.if shes upset/overtired and just not going down for that nap then i'd probably resort to the stroller.
what is your routine now?
HTH

[mic74]

Thanks for your reply.  At bedtime I have still been using the bottle to get her to sleep.  We haven't had much of a routine due to the teething, night waking, and we had company for a week.  Yesterday she woke at 6:00 am and I couldn't get her back to sleep.  That is way earlier than her normal wakeup.  At 7:30 am I gave her her bottle and she fell asleep, so she had a very early morning nap of 90 minutes.  We had to go out at noon and she fell alseep in her stroller for 30 minutes, but was woken up by some noise.  When we got home at 2:30 I tried to put her down and it didn't go so well.  She played for a little while, but started crying.  I stood at her crib and tried to rub her back, but she kept trying to stand up.  After 60 minutes of her being in her crib I gave up.  I am dedicating the next week to this and we are not going to go out of the house except AFTER nap time lol!  She is still sleeping this morning (currently 6:40 am here) and I hope she is getting caught up on some sleep.  Something else that I wasn't familiar with was the winddown of at least 10 minutes.  I was reading her a quick story and that was about it.  I'm going to try that today as well.

I will record our routine today and post it tonight.  Any other advice for us?

[mic74]

Ok things are really going terrible here today. 
A 7:00
E 7:30 solids
E 8:30 bottle  she fell asleep during this bottle
S 8:30-10:00
E 11:30 solids
E 11:33 bottle
S well it hasn't happened.  At 12:20 I did quiet time, put her in her crib at 12:30 and at 2:00 I pulled her out cause I gave up!!!!!  She constantly pulled herself up and I would lay her down.  I would lay my hand on her chest so she couldn't get up, I would pat her chest, I even gave her a partial bottle.  She is now playing with her toys as happy as could be....  I really need some advice

[andibig]

Oh hun.sending you some hugs sounds like you need them.

OK some of this could be developmental as well.As you know our LOs like to keep us on our toes!
i think it would definetely help to re-establish her routine (or as near as you can).on days when her naps haven't been great or even non-exsistent i would go for an early bedtime in the hope she will make the night time sleep up.
overtired babies can do well with an early bedtime (and it doesn't mean they will wake early) as the first part of the night sleep is their deep restorative sleep.
when she pulls herself up in her cot is she able to get herself down?if not plenty of practise at non nap times will help.Sasha did the very same thing to me at that age and turned it into a game .what i did was just stand at the side of the cot not looking at her (or touching her) until she got bored and laid down to sleep.
if she is playing in her cot then i would be tempted to leave her and see what happens.unless shes getting upset i wouldn't intervene.you can't make them sleep unfortunately.i'd try not to offer her a btl either otherwise she'll expect it all the time to get to sleep.
personally i really think windowns are great as it sets the scene for sleep.my winddown for sasha was the same every time and usually about 5 mins.some los do better with a longer windown so its really what your baby prefers.
i'll try and think of some more ideas for you but hope the above helps.
Andrea