Day 33: Six-month-old nap resister

I tried to do everything right today. I watched Mari carefully for signs of fatigue and tried to put her down for her naps as soon as I saw them. For the morning nap, this didn't work out too badly. She slept for an hour and 45 minutes, waking up at 10:30. I thought this was an acceptable nap.

We took some pictures to celebrate her 6-month half-birthday. But after less than an hour of being up, she started yawning, rubbing her eyes and looking away, where normally she's up two to two and a half hours before she needs to nap again. I thought it seemed too soon, but I tried to put her down. I fed her, I read to her, I rocked her, I sang to her, I put her down... but though she didn't seem very energetic, she would not close her eyes.

After 45 or 50 minutes of trying various techniques to get her to fall asleep, I thought maybe I'd misinterpreted. Maybe she was yawning because she'd just woken up. Maybe she was looking away from her toys because she was bored. Maybe she was rubbing her eyes because... I dunno... it was bright? (Though it wasn't, not really.) So I let her play alone in her crib for 15 minutes before trying again to put her down.

Big mistake. It was by now past the time she normally falls asleep, and she was now overtired and fussy. I tried to rock her and put her down in her crib as usual. She screamed. I tried to lie down beside her in our bed for a co-nap. She screamed. I walked, I rocked, I sang, I shushed, I nursed, I gave her the pacifier, I jiggled, I turned on the mobile... everything I could think of. She screamed and screamed. Finally I made Jon put her down because I figured we were heartily sick of each other by then, and Mari often reacts better to the fresher parent. It was about 1:45 by the time she fell asleep, nearly two and a half hours after she first started showing signs of fatigue.

For her late-afternoon nap, Mari again showed signs of fatigue and I tried to put her down. It took me 45 minutes after the end of the naptime routine for her to fall asleep.

I know I may have been trying too many techniques to get her to sleep and actually ended up overstimulating her. But she was crying so hard I wanted to figure out how to make her stop. Whatever new thing I was doing would often make her stop temporarily. Then she would start again. Argh!

Any advice on how to get a little nap resister to nap would be much appreciated.