Being firm with myself and white noise

Things have been going ok at night. My husband is still taking care of Baby J, and most nights that consists of one full waking around 3:00 am, and a few minor wakings that require shusshing down. Last night it was just one waking at 3. He made her a bottle, she took a few sips, then fell asleep. Hopefully we'll be able to get her away from the bottle wakings at night.

But then, for the past few mornings, I've been taking her in bed with me around 6-6:30 when she wakes up. AND, I've been feeding her in bed. This was something that I was trying to avoid. I don't want her to get confused and think that this will happen in the middle of the night when she wakes up. But the lure of a few more minutes or even an extra hour of sleep fogs my mind. But, starting tomorrow I'm going to be firm with myself. When she wakes up anytime past 6:00 am I'm going to get myself up, go downstairs with her and either nurse her or feed her a bottle. Ideally we could go right to breakfast, then a sippy cup of milk, but that may be a little ways off.

I'm also trying to work on getting her in the habit of eating after sleeping. So, like, when she wakes up from her current nap (just got her down after an hour of crying and tantruming) I'm going to talk about food when I pick her up out of the crib, make the sign for food, and go right to her high chair. I did this yesterday and it worked ok, but she seemed a little too disoriented to really enjoy eating or eat a lot. Maybe I should give her a few minutes of play time (that's what I normally do), but that can just lead anywhere. (From playing in the nursery, to crawling up the stairs, to wanting to go outside, etc.)

So, about the putting down for her nap just now, it did not go well. It started off ok around 9:00 am. We went upstairs after a nursing session down in her nursery. Once upstairs, I read her some books and she seemed tired enough so we headed to the crib. Nothing unusual, just a little fussiness. But once in the crib she would stand, I would say "Lie down, hunny" and she would lie down after a few seconds. We do this over and over. Sometimes it escalates into fit-throwing, sometimes she goes to sleep. It was fit-throwing day. But, today I decided not to nurse her back to being calm. We've really got to get her to figure out other ways to calm herself.

So, she kind of starts going crazy, thrashing her body about, and it really doesn't do any good to hold her anymore. So I put her back in the crib and she's still upset. We go back and forth. But, today I told her that I was going to let her calm down a little and let her get her upsettedness out of her system while I went downstairs and gave her some space. She got quiet like she was listening, and stayed quiet until I reached the bottom step. Then she cried again. I let her cry for 10 minutes. :( Went back up and she wouldn't be calmed again. I held her for another 10 minutes and it was more of the same thrashing. I went downstairs again. For 10 ninutes she cried, though a little calmer. I went back upstairs after 10 minutes and picked her up. After a while I put her back in the crib, sung to her and that seemed to do the trick. She fell asleep.

After 15 minutes she woke up crying again. I went up, held her, and she started thrashing. I then decided to turn off the white noise and she got quiet. At first I thought she would start up crying again because whenever there is a new sound (or lack of sound) she quiets down to listen. But this time she stayed quiet. I shusshed her very quietly while swaying with her, then put her in the crib when her eyes were closed for about a minute. She opened her eyes when I put her down, but she was able to get back to sleep.

So, maybe she's tired of the white noise.