A.D.
When my son was younger he would only fall asleep for naps if he was being held and bounced. Sometimes I would sit on an exercise ball and bounce and sometimes I would just bounce him in my arms...either way, naptime was exhausting! I was extremely opposed to doing any kind of cry-to-sleep technique...but something had to give. We started a very strict naptime routine--lunch, 30 minutes of play, two stories or a few songs, naptime. Then we would lay him down awake and let him cry for 5 mins...then we would go in and comfort him and lay him back down...then let him cry for 10 minutes...comfort, 15 minutes/comfort, 20/minutes comfort. We never let him go more than 20 minutes, but we would let him cry for 20 minute intervals until he eventually passed out from exhaustion. It took a few days, but now he goes down no problem...even if we don't stick to the routine.
Another thing that has worked for us on days that he really doesn't want to sleep is he has a special pillow (it's actually a boppie that he latched on to one day) so we say it's time to go in and read stories. We give him his blanket and cup and tell him to lay down on his pillow on the floor so we can read stories. He lays down on his pillow and I lay on the floor next to him on my own pillows and we read stories. I read the stories in a very soft soothing tone no matter what's going on in the story and eventually he starts to rub his eyes...so then I usually play with his hair while I read or rub his back. The 'special' pillow really helped though. He loves having his very own pillow to lay down on that's just for story time...it's kind of like tricking him into wanting a nap because he thinks we're just reading stories, but eventually all the soothing things make him super sleepy. If he gets up to play with toys or wander around his room I just continue to read. After about a minute I tell him that if he wants more stories he needs to lay down and he usually comes right back to his pillow. Good luck!
