Sleep baby sleep

A few people have asked about Avery and how she was sleeping b/c of this post and this post. My parents were actually really worried. Truthfully I was too. I was actually really frightened that there was really something wrong b/c she was refusing to go in her crib, to lay down at all, and it looked like she was fighting sleep. As I've said before she has a really tough time with teething and she goes through periods where it is tough to put her to bed. But typically it isn't as hard to put her to sleep at night than it is for nap time. She's def never just sat in the corner for hours and refused to lay down.

To ease some of my worries, I actually spoke to her nanny for a while about what we were going through at night. I had already told her that she was having a really hard time going to sleep at night, but I didn't go into any details. She said everything was fine at daycare and she's a happy kid. The only time she cries is during drop off and pick up. She doesn't like it when she can't see Ms. Debbie and tends to follow her around and will refuse to lay down and nap unless she has her within her sight. I asked if she rocked Avery for nap time b/c I haven't rocked her since she was 13 months old and weaned from her bottle, but she started to say "chair" and pointing to her recliner for us to sit and cuddle at night. I told her this wasn't an issue, but just wanted to know. She advised that she cuddled Avery for a few minutes during the first week or so, but hasn't since. When Avery first started daycare and pointing at her chair we would literally only sit on the chair for 10 sec before she wanted to go in her crib, but during this whole "ordeal" we would sit in the chair forever!

So here's our theories of what might have been going on:

1) She was teething like we thought. 8 long days after the first incident, I got a pic message from Kevin showing Avery laying down for a nap. He said that she just layed down right away. That was on a Sunday afternoon. Sunday night I wanted to see if she had issues going to sleep so I tried to put her to sleep. I started to go through our old routine of standing by her crib, cuddling and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I didn't even make it past "little" before she was reaching for crib and saying "bed" and "nite nite". It's been a breeze since...KNOCK ON WOOD!!!

2) Her ears were bothering her...possibly from teething...possibly from an ear infection. By the time we were going to take her to the doctor she was fine. Besides we kept getting mixed answers from her when we would ask if her ears hurt. She'd say yes then no. If I asked her if she had an owie, she'd say "owie. boo boo." and grab her knee. Anyway, when kiddos have an earache it hurts to lay down so that may have been a reason why she was refusing to lay down.

3) She just needed some extra time with us and needed the extra attention and cuddles. We gave her that. I made sure to give her as much one on one time as possible when I got home from work b/c I have a feeling that she may be taking it extra hard that I've gone back to work. All she's ever known is Mommy being home with her and now I'm dropping her off at Ms. Debbie's.

I'm just relieved she is sleeping better. She was a grouchy little kiddo in the mornings b/c she wasn't sleeping well. Now, she doesn't cry when I go into her room to get her ready for daycare. Then again I usually have a banana or a granola bar to bribe her with...hey, whatever works, right???