Oh I seriously am the same = I could so fall asleep everytime I put dd down for a nap. All the rocking, and cuddling, sound machine, dark room. I'm like - "Throw me a pillow, and where's the floor!!??" But as soon as I come out, I'm awake again
Yes, dd is also the same - just needs a good bit of help with the wind down to start shutting down. Not winding down till she is asleep, but wound down enough where she can take over from there, and be independent and in control of the actually falling asleep. She just isn't as good at calming down on her own, and needs help. I mean, before when she was non-mobile, there wasn't a lot of difference between laying on the floor looking around for A time, to looking around the dark room in the crib - so there was less to wind down from. But now, she's crawling everywhere, pulling up, pulling stuff off the couch, go, go, go, and she just needs more time and help to transition from go, go, go, to being in the crib expected to be quiet and go to sleep. I hope that makes sense.
I have been known to rock with dd for 20-30min if she just is having a hard time winding down. AND, the more OT she is, the longer our wind down ends up being. Because if I put her down before she is pretty drowsy, she'll be up and crying within seconds, and requires much more pd, and, I too put my hand on dd when she is in the crib and fussing, but isn't pulling up, until she is calm, and try to leave the room before she falls completely asleep - but she only needs the hand on her when she is OT - esp at night when she's OT from bad naps, and needs a few pd's at night, I'll do the hand a lot more. So, yeah, it can be a fine line. But if she being put into the crib AWAKE, I think her dependence on you after being put down will become increasingly less as she gets better at self soothing again. And there are other tools like gradual withdrawal to help with getting out of her room if she does become dependent on you physically being IN the room, but not being held by you.
Take care, keep me posted!!
