Stress building or stress releasing crying?

Moxie has a great post up about two different styles of kids' crying related to going to sleep. Be sure to click over and read the whole post; it's excellent.

She says, "There are babies who release tension by crying, and there are babies who increase energy by crying. If you treat them both the same way, you're going to have trouble"

Her descriptions of each type are superb:

• "A kid who releases tension by crying will not always nurse or be rocked down to sleep. It may happen sometimes, but often times the kid will get progressively more active and jittery, almost manic, as the nursing or rocking session goes on. He or she may cry during the rocking/nursing, and not settle down in a few seconds. It's almost as if the kid wants to cry. If you leave the child alone, the child will wail initially (for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes), but then settle down to a fuss or whimper, and will soon fall asleep. A child who releases tension from crying will often wake up happy and refreshed, and will play alone in the bed, co-sleeper, or crib for awhile before you come to get them.
  
  A kid who gains tension by crying will go to sleep easily (and maybe exclusively) by nursing or rocking. It may take awhile, but rocking/nursing is a sure, gradual path toward relaxation and sleep. If left alone before s/he's asleep, s/he'll start to cry. And will cry and cry, increasing in intensity until the child goes hoarse or throws up or you give in and go to comfort him or her. Many kids who increase tension by crying, even if they go to sleep peacefully and happily, will wake up crying or grumpy and need to be gotten immediately from the sleeping area.
  
  If you have a kid who releases tension by crying, the child seems to need to fuss or cry a little before falling asleep. If you don't recognize it, you'll be miserable. You can rock and rock and rock, and your child won't go to sleep easily and will end up crying anyway, but you'll think you're doing something horribly wrong that you can't comfort your baby to sleep. In reality, the child just needs to release tension by crying or fussing, and will go to sleep easily after a few minutes of this."

This describes Baby E perfectly.

Unfortunately, both descriptions fit Baby E perfectly, depending on the day or the sleep session. Sometimes she screams and screams when we put her to bed, whether we're in the room or not, and the only thing that will calm her down is rocking and/or nursing. Other times no amount of rocking and nursing will put her to sleep or even relax her, and if I put her down in the crib she will cry for a few minutes and then quickly drop off to sleep, almost as though in relief that I finally put her into the crib.

I think that rather than picking one method or the other as I've been trying to do, I'm going to have to try to figure out whether she's escalating or destressing each time and try to take it from there appropriately.

And then sometimes neither method works.

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Yesterday she was obviously very tired and ready for a nap. I rocked, nursed, sang to her, put her in the crib and let her scream, everything I could think of with no success. I'd hold her and she'd slap my face and throw herself around, fussing angrily. I'd put her in the crib and she'd scream and scream. Even teething tablets and ibuprofen didn't help.

Finally, after two hours of this, I put her in the crib and left the room. She cried for a couple of minutes, then played happily in her crib until she fell asleep some time later.

Today I made the mistake of nursing her before her nap, and she fell asleep for about 2 minutes while nursing but then woke up again when I laid her down. She screamed frantically. After getting her up and feeding her on the other side, she calmed down but was wide awake, even though obviously still tired. Rocking her wasn't calming her down. So I put her in her crib. Taking Moxie's advice, I talked to her first and told her that it was time to take a nap, and that she needed to go into the crib for some quiet time and go to sleep.

Talking to her about it first did seem to help, as did the fact that I stayed hear her room and let her see and hear me working around the house nearby. She cried halfheartedly for a few minutes, then started playing.

She played in her crib for almost an hour, then started crying again. By that point naptime was over, so I got her up and fed her lunch. She was still rubbing her eyes and fussing. I don't know how she managed to stay awake for so long when she was obviously so tired.

Then I debated whether to try to lay her down again or just keep her up until it was time for the next nap.

What would you do?

As Moxie pointed out, not only is Baby E cutting six teeth, but she's also developing several dramatic new skills. Both scenarios tend to interfere with sleep.

She's trying to learn how to stand on her own, she's picking up new words and hand signs, she's starting to use the potty, and she's doing all kinds of new things.

Yesterday, I think it was, I was sitting at the computer with Baby E when DH came in and sat at his computer. Baby E looked at him and said something like, "Ooh-duh, Dada! Ooh-duh, Dada! Dada, ooh-duh! Ooh-duh." Then she started flailing her hands, obviously trying to communicate in a gesture. She was waving her hands up and down, then she made the "milk" sign at DH, which she tends to do when she wants something.

He took her and she continued saying "ooh-duh" and making motions toward . . . DH's keyboard. She wanted to play on his computer.

He said, "You want to play on the computer?" and made typing motions with his hands. She beamed and copied his hand motions.

He turned on the keyboard pounder program for her and she typed away delightedly on his computer. She threw a huge tantrum when it was time to stop.

Yesterday afternoon I took her into the bathroom to see if she wanted to use the toilet. She started saying, "Otter! Otter!" and trying frantically to get into the bathtub. I tried to be understanding. "Water? You want to take a bath? Baths are fun, aren't they? But I'm sorry, it's nap time right now. You can't take a bath now. Later you can."

She screamed and threw herself around crazily, hitting and pushing me with her hands.

"No, you may not hit Mommy," I said. "I know you're mad, but it's not okay to hit. You want to take a bath, don't you? You love the water. But we can't do that right now. Sorry. We just can't. It's time for a nap."

She was furious, and continued her tantrum for quite some time. But it did seem to comfort her a bit that I understood what she was trying to communicate.

Finally I got the idea to let her wash her hands in the sink. Getting her hands into the water for a few moments seemed to be a decent compromise, and she calmed down after that.

If nothing else, it helped me to know that she was just throwing a tantrum because she couldn't take a bath, rather than crying because she was hungry or in pain.