Boring!

Another post without pictures. I know, boring. Sorry. One day we'll get our computer fixed. Until then, HELP! Alaina is having the hardest time sleeping! Or rather, I'm having the hardest time getting her to sleep. I don't want to use the cry it out method. I did it with the other two and there has got to be a better way. Plus, Alaina won't cry it out ever. She's too mobile (She sits, she crawls, she has one tooth and is cutting a second one, and she's on a potty strike--see other blog for more on the potty strike). I can't tell you how many times I've come in to find her on her hands and knees keeping herself awake but with her tired little head drooping. Or stuck with her legs between the crib bars. It's pitiful. I usually rock her to sleep or something, but there are days where trying to soothe her to sleep three times a day is just asking too much. That's how I know what the cry it out method would yield. She is so resistant to having help falling asleep (she arches, screams, flails, then calms just long enough to get almost asleep then we do it all again). For some reason, blowing on her face helps sometimes. I think it makes her close her eyes, and if her eyes are closed, she's more likely to sleep (duh).

So how do you do it? How do you get a 6 month old to learn to just GO TO SLEEP!? Why does it have to be a battle? Why does she fight it? You'd think I would have learned this with my human development major, but my infant development class was a joke. Plus, I've read 100 books on parenting anyway and I want something different. Alaina's such a happy baby, full of smiles and giggles, but when it comes to sleeping she's a totally different baby. I just want her to learn to fall asleep peacefully, but I don't know how to do that. No matter what I try, she never falls asleep peacefully. If she's overtired she will, but if she's overtired then she's been grumpy and fussy for a while already so that doesn't count as peaceful. We generally have a nursing, swaddling (but it's getting too hot for that and she's too wiggly), rocking, singing, white noise routine, but it's not helping. I want a simple, 3-4 step plan that works without making her cry and takes less that 15 minutes. Maybe I'm picky, but I'm just not into taking her for a walk every night and every naptime or going for a drive three times a day to get her to sleep. I don't want her to run the household due to her picky sleeping issues. I don't mind holding her or cuddling her, but I don't have an extra half hour to invest in getting her to sleep every time she needs a nap and I don't like fighting her to get her soothed. I need her to just calm down and fall asleep when she's tired. How does one go about teaching this? I guess, in the end if all the things I try don't work and she's going to cry anyway I might just have to resort to the cry it out thing. Oh, bother.