45-Minute What?

If you are doing the Baby Wise approach you are certainly familiar with the term 45-minute intruder. For those who aren't familiar with this term see below.
I wonder if they brainstormed names for this phenomenon before settling on "intruder." I think some of these might have been considered: robber, invader, great barbarian horde.

Baby Z and I have been struggling with the 45 minute intruder off and on for a long time. In the past, the pacifier was guaranteed to soothe Baby Z back into slumber. Recently, the intruder is so...well, intrusive, that not even the pacifier makes a dent. I think I mentioned once already that the intruder becomes more pronounced around 6 months, perhaps because the baby is more aware of his surroundings and stays awake to look around. Baby Wise II states you should not intervene and keep him in bed until his sleep patterns override his curiosity.

For his morning nap, the very curious Baby Z mostly coos and chats to himself and then toward the end of his nap time starts to cry a little. I've been waiting this one out for about 4-5 days now-- that is, I haven't been going in at all. For the most part, he hasn't been going back to sleep again except for a few times. But I will take that as encouragement that it will happen more consistently. I really need a little light at the end of the tunnel.

The afternoon nap is another story. He wakes up and it sounds like Baby Z's world is ending. It is the kind of cry that makes you think he's in pain or very scared. The thing is, when I have settled him down, it becomes clear that he was just upset -- there was no pain-- just an improved proficiency at crying. Since this started (maybe a week ago), I have been picking him up, soothing him and then putting him back down before he falls asleep. This took about 3-5 minutes and worked like a charm.

Yesterday, everything changed. I soothed, comforted, rocked, shushed for 45 minutes without much affect. It started to remind me of when we were learning how to put Baby Z to bed-- the more we tried to comfort him before putting him down, the more worked up he got. We finally learned that he did best if we just put him right to bed. So, yesterday, out of exhaustion more than a calculated decision of parenting, I put him down and walked out of the room. I sat on my bed and cried and prayed, trying to figure out what to do next. After 5 minutes of this, low and behold, I heard Baby Z start to soothe himself --low mmm sounds and sucking on his hand. There was still more crying after that, but it proved to me that he could talk himself down off the crying cliff, so to speak.

So, I geared myself up to wait out the 45-minute barbarian horde for as long as it takes for Baby Z to learn how to go back to sleep. Thankfully, the end-of-the-world cries are happening not as often, and he's back to the average cry. It is still hard to listen to that for half an hour or more. Baby Wise II says that the 45-minute intruder at 6 months could go on for anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. What I thought was a sprint just turned into a marathon. I feel a little underprepared; I'm going to have to stick this one out on willpower and a lot of prayer. If it takes 3 weeks, then I figure I'm at mile 9 or so.

45-minute intruder: The baby wakes up 45 minutes into a nap. It could be caused by hunger (Baby Wise says to first treat it as a hunger problem) or because the baby is transitioning between relaxed sleep patterns and active sleep patterns. Especially at 6 months, "as your child comes out of the relaxed sleep state, his new sense of alertness is affected by familiar sounds...The alertness seems to trigger curiosity, and instead of falling back to sleep, he wakes and cries for you."