My DD Zoey is 5.5 months old. For the first few months of her life, I rocked her to sleep and then a couple of months ago, I decided to sleep train her. I used the shhh/pat method and it worked great. After a very short time, I could lay Zoey down in her crib awake and leave the room and she would go off to sleep in a few minutes. Also, if she woke in the night before 4am, I would not go to her and she would cry for a minute or two and go back to sleep. Things were going great. Then, she learned how to roll...
Now, a few months later, when I lay her in her crib awake and leave the room, she may cry for a minute or two but always settles herself down. After that though, she proceeds to roll around in her crib and babble to herself, etc. She often does this for HOURS before becoming overtired and crying. At that point I have gotten into the bad habit of going in and nursing her to sleep because I don't know what else to do! All the books talk about how get a baby to sleep when they are CRYING...but Zoey does not cry. She is perfectly happy in her crib, but she just does not seem to be able to fall asleep on her own anymore!!!
This started with night wakings but now has been happening during the day for her naps. This morning, after 2 hours awake I did her wind down routine and laid her in her crib, just like I always do. I know she was tired before this because she was rubbing her eyes, yawning, and even started to fall asleep while I was singing her her nap song! Once I laid her down though, she woke right up and fussed a little. After two minutes she stopped fussing, but then proceeded to roll all over her crib. After 30 minutes, I went in and swaddled her back up, told her it was nap time and left the room again. An HOUR later she was still awake (I have a video monitor but I could also hear her "talking" up there). Finally at that point she started to cry and so I ended up nursing her to sleep. She then kept waking every 20 minutes because she was now overtired (she had been up 1.5 hours after I tried to get her down!)!
At night if I don't go to her when she first wakes she will wake herself right up like this and be awake for hours. She has only gotten herself to sleep a couple of times in the night lately, and this was only after I fed her but she was still awake. Usually she ends up crying for me and I go in and nurse her to sleep.
I just do not know what to do about this! Everything I have read, from BW to even the CIO methods are all talking about when a baby is crying and assuming they would go to sleep once they settle down! What happens if they are not crying but STILL not sleeping?!?!?!?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. This is becoming a problem for Zoey.
Shannon
