No Rest for the Weary

My daughter sleeps well. She rarely wakes up in the middle of the night anymore. She goes down for naps in the swing pretty well. The thing we struggle with (and by we, I mean SHE) is bedtime.

I try to do the bedtime routine of pajamas, swaddle, nurse when she seems to be getting tired. It's generally between 7:00 and 8:00. She nurses fine and appears to be sleeping to me. However, when I get up to lay her down (or actually do lay her down), she immediately starts getting fussy and going crazy. She stretches out her body and starts whining. She's all of a sudden wide awake. I walk her, rock her, sing, bounce...all the things that usually work to help her get to sleep. Nothing works. I undo her swaddle and she still freaks out.

I think she's starting to teethe, so I gave her a little Tylenol tonight to see if that would help with the pain. It didn't make a bit of difference. I started putting her to bed at 7:30 and she didn't go to sleep until 9:30. I'm at my wit's end. The rest of our day great. I don't understand why it takes so long to get her to bed. I woke her up from her afternoon nap at 4:40, hoping that not letting her sleep to late would help. (She napped until 5:30-6 the past 2 nights.) That didn't make a difference, either. I've tried putting her down earlier. I've tried keeping her up later. The end result is almost always a 2+ hour bedtime routine. I let her cry for 5 minutes tonight, and then Matt went to rock her. It took her forever to calm down from that.

I dread night time. I'm so frustrated, but I feel like it's too early to begin sleep training. Most books I read suggest 6-9 months. I don't know if anyone has any suggestions, but I figured it might be a little therapeutic to write about it at least. I'm open to anything. Except crying it out. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. :-) Come on, veteran moms...help me out! Or at least tell me that it's too early to expect anything more (she'll be 4 months next week).