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@Little Misters Mom: I can see how that would make sense, but what I read was that after 4pm all bets are off and putting baby to bed not too overtired is key for not f*cking up nighttime sleep. she just sleeps so crappy at night when she's overtired

@ellewoods84: Yea I set a 30 min cry limit or 45 min total time limit (whichever comes first) and if she hits either limit then I just abort the nap attempt and wait until she seems tired again (usually about 30 min after we give up her "yay i beat the nap" adrenaline wears off). Honestly I super dreaded/avoided it too and sort of got pushed into it by my husband. We were at the point where I had to rock her 100% of the time for 100% of her naps and with me being the only one who can reliably feed her too and a staggered schedule.. I hadn't actually had more than 1 hr away from her in the last 2 months except 1 day when I had a wedding to shoot (preexisting commitment) and Fia didn't eat or sleep for 8 hrs while B watched her So his point was just that... this is not sustainable for us. And it sucks that he can't ever watch her and give me a break. Which I agreed... but I think it is easier to be the one in the rough spot than to watch your spouse go through it sometimes. So-- yea. Thats why I got pushed into it. But I will be grateful if it actually works. The process just blows.

@Eminthevalley: she is 6.5 mo and on 3 naps/day. One concern we had is that I know 5.5-7 mo is supposed to be "ideal" sleep training time. Plus the fact that she hasn't started teething at all.. so it seemed like a time when it may be easier on her. We were concerned if we waited another few months it might get harder on her, especially if she is teething then (or in the throws of winter sicknesses etc).

@Zbug: We can deal with some inconsistency in naps, but having to hold her for every single nap for the whole nap was just not sustainable for us long term. I used to be able to rock her to sleep and set her down but she hasn't let me do that for 6 weeks despite lots and lots and lots of trying.

@Turd Ferguson: thanks, good luck to you too! I know lots of people say checks make their babies escalate but that isn't the case for ours. 90% of the time she falls asleep within 1 minute of a check (for both night and now naps). It's like she needs to cry a bit to get the frustration out then when I come in and give her the paci back and pat her head she calms right down and drifts off (at least, WHEN she falls asleep that is how it happens. but sometimes it takes several checks).

So to update how today went... it was craptastic. After our short 2nd nap (with 3rd nap attempt) she was pretty cranky but I kept her up about 2 hrs so I could give her a bottle and keep her upright long enough after (reflux baby). For our 4th attempt she fell asleep after 30 min (about 20-25 of that crying), which was the first time she ever fell asleep for that last nap... but it only lasted 12 minutes. womp womp. woke up crying. I let her cry 5 min just to see if she'd go back to sleep bc sometimes at night she'll wake up and cry 2-3 min and go back to sleep-- but no dice. Tried to rock her to sleep (at this point she'd had 37 min of sleep total since 11:50 am), no dice. Gave up and took a break for 15 min to try to calm her down and then tried to rock her again... no dice. So she had a VERY light sleep day today.

Before nap training she slept around 4.5-5 hours/day for naps (830-10, 1-3,530-630, give or take). Today she slept about half of that. Tonight has been predictably rough due to over tiredness. She went down okay but has woken up crying like 4 times in the last 2 hrs. Sigh.

I really hope today was just a step back and tomorrow we move forward with some better naps. I think I'm committing to finishing out a week of this to see if she improves, but she needs to make some significant improvements. I'm not sure my freedom is worth it if it means she's sleep half of what she needs to for naps and ends up crying for 10+ min for every nap