HELP!! Day 6 sleep training -- NO LUCK!!!!

[amomy]

Please help me!  I have been sleep training for 6 days with no luck.  My little girl is 14 months old and has always  had to be rocked, walked, and bounced to sleep.  Other than this problem, she is an angel baby who sleeps, eats, and plays wonderfully.  She never, never cries and has always been a truly happy child.
However.......
following the advice from my last question on this site, I have been rocking her for just a few seconds and telling her it is time for her to lay down and go to sleep.  I put her in her crib and sit in the room with her giving her no attention.  The first time it took 1 hr. (about 40 minutes of crying and then about 20 min. of literally hanging over the side of the crib with closed eyes trying to go to sleep STANDING UP!  I eventually go and lay her down and pat her until she goes to sleep.  I was expecting the time to lessen each time but it has not.  She has only once layed down and every other time goes to sleep standing up with her arms hanging over the side of the crib.  I actually thought that we were still making progress because she was actually going to sleep without my holding her but the last two days she will NOT go to sleep.  No matter what, she won't go to sleep.  Yesterday her only nap was 20 minutes in the car and she refused to ever go to sleep in her crib.  Today was much the same and tonight I finally gave in and picked her up and rocked her and then layed her down while still whimpering slightly and she did go to sleep finally.  Oh my goodness, what's going on??  Has anyone had setbacks like this.  Am I trying the wrong approach or is my child incapable of indep. sleep?  I am almost to the end of my rope and have had thoughts of giving up and going back to the old way.  I don't want to give in but I'm out of ideas and hope.
 Please help me!!!!!! 

[Florencia]

Hi!
Don't you worry, she's just learning a new way to go to sleep and she's showing some resistance to it. You're not trying to torture her and that's the message you should send. I'm afraid that her resistance has now to do with some overtiredness. I'd start with bringing her nap and bedtime forward a good 30 mins in prevision for her resistance so she will eventually go to sleep at the desired time.

Along with this, try with baby steps. Pick nap time or bedtime (when you feel stronger to deal with it) and go with it. Once you have one of them worked out, go with the next. A long wind down should help you as well, introduce an extra story, a massage, singing an extra song while rocked and when she's drowsy try and get her inside her crib, being really careful on keeping some contact so she won't feel abandoned. Try play time during awake times inside her crib so she won't associate it with a torture place but a fun place to be.

Post back with her regular schedule so we can come up with more ideas, but keep in mind that each child is capable of independent sleep, as Tracy used to say, there's always a gentler solution, we just have to find it! There's hope, and we'll be here for you during the progress.