Sleep Plan: Day 5

Yesterday's sleep plan experience can be summed up in one word.  HORRIFIC.

E woke up yesterday morning at 5:45 a.m. and would not go back to bed, despite us giving her nearly an hour to fuss and try to go back to sleep.

Since she had gotten up for the day so early, I tried putting her down for her first nap around 8:00 a.m.  She was SO exhausted, but wouldn't sleep.  She was practically falling asleep in the living room around 10:00 a.m., so I tried again.  Another 60 minutes of failure to nap and and an "I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep" poop.  She finally went to sleep when I put her down for her afternoon nap, but only after her 60 minutes had passed and I went into the room with her.  Once I was in the room, she was asleep in minutes.  (I know that is cheating, to soothe her at nap time, but she was SO TIRED and I was afraid the more overtired she got, the less chance we would have of her ever going to sleep.)  She slept for 45 minutes.

Bedtime last night took nearly two hours, and again, she fell asleep only when one of us was in the room with her.  I went to check on her, sat on our bed (again, not touching her), and she was asleep in seconds.  The rest of the night, she was awake every 1-2 hours, with varying success in getting back to sleep.  Needless to say, we are all so freaking tired today we can barely function.

I know we are still within the normal range for not having success with our sleep plan yet.  I also know that especially stubborn babies (*cough* E *cough*) can take even longer than average.  However, I am feeling extremely frustrated at this point.  I thought we were finally getting somewhere, and then last night was a major regression.  I just want this to work.  I hate doing this to E and I just want it to be over.

I know there is no easy solution, I'm just having a tough time this morning.  No doubt made worse by the fact that I have maybe had 8 total hours of sleep in the past two days. 

So, lets troubleshoot what might be going on.  E does better with us in the room, so I don't think that her being in our room is the issue.  It is also not something we are willing to change at this time.  Moving beyond that, I know we need to break this habit of E needing us in the room to fall asleep, but I don't know what else to do.  We are almost a week in, and she will not even lay down to try to sleep on her own.  She will lay there and soothe herself to sleep quickly when we are in the room, but if we leave her awake, the second we walk out the door, she stands back up and starts crying again.  On the two nights she did fall asleep on her own, it was after 2-3 hours of screaming, and she fell asleep standing up.  She WILL NOT lay down, and I don't know how to force her to, or if that is even possible.  If we could just get her to lay down on her own, I'm sure she would be asleep so much faster.  Any suggestions there?

Other than me giving her three opportunities to nap yesterday, and soothing her to sleep during a nap twice (in the past week), we have followed the sleep plan to a T.  I don't know what else to do there.  Do we completely stop soothing her or checking on her, period?  Just let her cry as long as it takes, no matter what? 

Other random notes:  We added a fleece sleep sack to the equation a few days ago, in case she was getting too cold and that was causing her to wake up at night.  She also has a fan for white noise, a dim night light, and a music box on her Pack-N-Play that she can turn on and off herself.  Oh, and she has a stuffed animal that has always been her bedtime lovey, which she does sleep with every night, also in her bed.  We also have been offering her extra snacks during the day, to make sure she has ample opportunities to eat so that she won't wake up hungry at night wanting to nurse.

Do any of you have any other thoughts?  Am I missing something?  I am in uncharted territory here, folks.