My DS is 4 months old and has all of a sudden started having problems going down for a nap. After reading Tracy's first book a month ago, I put my son on EASY, he took to it immediately and did very well, I still need to work on reading his cues, though. I have just started the "solving all problems" book. So far I think he is ready for 4 hour easy, so I will transition him soon (this could be the problem).
Here is what was happening at nap time: He could stay awake between naps for 1 - 1.5 hours, so around that time is when I started watching for yawning, getting fussy, etc. When this began I would take him to his nursery, turn on the lullabyes, change his diaper, and rock him in the rocking chair and hum along to the music. He would fuss a little, but his eyes would droop and I would put him in his crib. He "complained" (not all out crying, but fussing) and would drop off after just a couple of minutes. His naps were short, though. 30-45 minutes. I decided not to work on extending them at that point because we were working on night time sleeping. He now sleeps very well at night.
Last night: bath, massage, stories, lullabyes, rock in chair and in crib by 9pm, no fussing, not a peep, asleep minutes later. Slept until 5:30 am, had a bottle (soy formula) and went back to sleep until 8:30 am. This is by far the best night's sleep he has had so far.
This is what happened with naps the last couple of days: I see he is getting tired, take him to nursery, do the same thing described above, only he now screams in the rocking chair. I get him calmed with shh/pat and put him in crib. He screams bloody murder, like gurgling and all. I do PU/PD until he conks out. I am going to him to pick him up when he is actually crying. I leave him if he is fussing. But today the crying got so bad when I was doing PU/PD, I have never heard him cry like this. Finally he conked out. Before this happened he had taken a few 2 hour naps, so I thought that was great. Today his longest nap was 1 hour, first nap of the day, second nap 30 min and now he just went down 20 min ago. I did 30 min of PU/PD before this nap. He has never needed it before, so this is new to me. I just skimmed the section in the book about what to do, so not sure if I'm doing it right.
I also have just started trying rice cereal with him today. Very runny and just to get him used to the idea of eating. He was definitely liking the sitting in the high chair, even "helped" me put the spoon in his mouth, but spit most of the cereal out. Didn't cry, just made a sour face.
Please let me know what you think, I somehow think there is a connection between sleeping so good at night and now not napping so well, but I don't know.
