She goes to sleep well for her naps. I say "do you wanna go night-night?" She walks over to the stairs, I open the gate, she crawls up and goes to her room. Once there, she plays with toys for a minute, I sit in the rocker, grab her favorite book, and she crawls in my lap. I then read her the book, sing her 3 or 4 songs, and then lay her down. Once she is down, I place my hand on her back. I hold it there until she dozes off. That usually takes about 1-5 minutes. She then sleeps anywhere from 1.5-2 hours.
At night, I say the same thing. She goes up the stairs, helps me get her jammies, and then put her toys into the tub. We take a bath, I get her out, give her baby massage, nurse her, and she falls asleep. I put her in her bed and then she usually sleeps until 5 or 6 in the morning. She was a great sleeper from early on until I moved her to her own room. Then it got inconsistent. For a few months she would often wake in the middle of the night.
We got desperate and did cry it out for two weeks to give it a shot. Well, she started sleeping through the night again, but I just didn't feel good about the process. We have always had a very good bond and I felt as though I was jeopardizing her trust in me.
So on the advice of a friend, I got "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems." It took one day of the technique and she started going down for naps in the way I described above. She also continued sleeping through the night. It is only over the past few days that she is breaking routine. That is why I fear a bad habit.
What do I do when I do PU/PD and she then lays there awake and won't allow us to leave? I thought tonight I would try not nursing her to sleep, but rather doing as I would for nap...the Baby Whisperer technique.
I will also try an earlier bed time. However, when I have tried this in the past, she has awaken at 4 AM or so, ready to start her day. She is down for her nap right now. She went down at 1:30, so I can't do the earlier nap today, but will try tomorrow. I will try whatever it takes!
Also, is walk-in/walk-out a Baby Whisperer technique? I tried to reference it in the book, but couldn't find it. I tried it last night when she wouldn't let us leave the room. I just basically did what I would do with PU/PD, only with the door, but with no success after an hour. She was up for three hours, until finally my husband took her to bed in the guest room to get her to sleep. We had had no more than 30 minutes of sleep and were just done for!
Thanks in advance for your assistance!