Oh Sharon,
I just read your entire thread. Sigh...hugs to you and the entire time I'm reading it, I'm thinking "gosh we mind as well have posted our problems together". It's almost exactly the same! My DD is refusing all naps at the moment. She's on strike apparently and then when we go to get her after raising the white flag, she comes out with a great big smile on her face and is just tickled by the fact that she's out. DH likes to say, "baby 230, mommy and daddy 0"....
Honestly, I've been in the same boat, fighting OT, where she wakes up too early in the a.m. to put down for one nap but is so OT and SA she won't take two naps either. She's been standing and crying/whining/moaning for days now every time I put her down for a nap. I finally realized from so many wonderful mommies that I was being too inconsistent. Because I was trying to do so much trial and error, one day I would give her 3 hours A time and the next day it was 4 hours A time. Then, one nap I may let her fight it out for an hour and 30 minutes and the next day get her after 30 minutes. AlohaKitty helped me realize that there was too much inconsistency and since Sophie is SO touchy, all this unpredictability is driving both her and I nuts. She doesn't know what to expect from me.
All along I have been doing WIWO but it wasn't a really consistent version of it and then today out of desperation we tried GW with my husband and she just sang songs to him and talked to him for most of the time!
I obviously dont' have the answer or else I wouldn't be desperate on my own thread but I just wanted to share that tomorrow I"m going to try something different (to create consistency). I know her A time has jumped so I am going to try to give her one nap and if she wakes up early and the one nap falls earlier in the day I will jsut put her down for early BT, since this also helps conquer OT with some extra night sleep. Then, I've decided that I will give her pain meds (just in case), put her down and just do WIWO until she finally gives in and naps because right now, I'll do WIWO until 45 minutes to an hour or hour and fifteen and then go in and get her and it's so obvious that the minute she gets up it's like "ooo mommy came to get me. Awesome!" The problem is, when I wait an hour later hoping that she's more tired, I try putting her down again and she fights it again and tries to "hold out" a bit longer knowing that eventually I will come rescue her out of bed which is what she wants. So it's become this viscious cycle where I keep trying to put her down, go get her, try again until there's been NO sleep at all and it's 5:30 p.m. and we're both absolutely exhausted. I can't go on with no nap days anymore...so hopefully this will help.
Like Wendy put it so well, it's not that she NEEDS me, she just WANTS me. This put things into perspective to me. I haven't left her ever to CIO so she knows that mommy is there. She just prefers NOT to be somewhere else where she can't play with mommy.
I'm praying that tomorrow she will eventually burn out and after a few more days of being consistent she will realize, okay, so mommy means business when it's nap time.
Sorry I'm writing so much on your thread. I guess I'm saying, I completely know where you are coming from and have actually learned a lot from reading your posts. I will let you know how it goes because maybe, if this works (fingers crossed) it may help Marlow!
We will get through this together =) Hugs xxx
