I feel like I'm really not the one to be giving advice, but I'm literally going through this now. My LO used to nap really well and then at week 6 stopped napping well. I decided it was because of the bad advice I got from getting a different sleep pattern book that told us to let her cry it out. (first time I did it and she cried for 45 minutes, I was in tears myself) After 2 days of listening to her cry, I knew there had to be a better way and spent 2 hours at Borders until I found BW. I kept saying that she was working perfectly fine until I "broke" her. What I didn't realize is that what she was going through was developmentally normal.
So I'm completely rambling now...
My DD has not had good naps for about 2 weeks where she is waking up any where between the 30 and 45 minute mark.
Have you read the threads on Overstimulation and the Napping FAQ's? Also, there is a link to a sleep interview with Tracy Hogg. Read all of that and there might be some good things to try as well.
The last 2 days have been MUCH better with the naps, but they are requiring a LOT of parental intervention to keep her down longer than 45 minutes. The first day, (which was Monday!) There was a LOT of crying and screaming. Which is no fun at 5:00 a.m. Seems that her bad napping had been accumulating and she was getting grumpier by the day! Tuesday was crying... but not as much over tired screaming! Yay! Wednesday was just fussing... and today a couple of her naps were much easier. The last one we fell to pieces again and didn't sleep, but at least LO was not crying. Just some quiet time and a few "I'm tired" cries.
I read in one of the posts some where that LOs will wake as they are shifting from one sleep cycle to the next. And sometimes they shake, and literally shake themselves awake. What we did was literally wait until right before those times that she would drift from one cycle to the next and keep our hands on her with a firm enough pressure to keep her from jolting too much. So she would wake, but not completely go crazy awake. That being said Mon-Wed she completely awoke each time and it was a lot of Shhh'ing to keep her down (Incidentally, my LO doesn't like the shh/pat either. We modified it with the Shh and rubbed her arms. She seemed to like that). There was some PU/PD and there was even some holding her in our arms and just let her cry her little eye balls out. the little itty bitty tears could just break your heart!
I knew we were on the right track on Tuesday when after one of her crying sessions where I just held her and kept whispering how much I loved her and to let it all out resulted in her once completed with her cry, looking up at me and giving me the cutest little grin I'd ever seen out of her!! The whole time I explained to her what I was doing and why I was doing it. I even had this esoteric conversation that I was telling her that she could do and be what ever she wanted to be with hard work... and that it all started with her getting good naps!!!
Any way, today, she slept until 6:00 am! (last df was 11:00) And her first nap, I only needed to put my hand on her for 5-10 minutes and she passed right through to the deep sleep and her second nap, she did it all by her little self! (Mommy had fallen asleep in the glider and missed it!). Any way, all of that was VERY time intensive. It was literally either myself or my DH in there with her for ALL of her naps through the duration of the nap. We would pop out for maybe 5 min. at a time, but was in there so the second she stirred we could ease her into the next sleep cycle. I'm hoping today was not a fluke, but we're planning on doing the same for the next several days to be sure. She was so much happier today and was cooing and smiling all over! It made the earlier time intensive days sooo worth it!
Btw, I also read a ton of Malia's other posts! VERY Helpful!
HTH!
Alissa
