9mo DD goes down for naps but cries when put down at night - help

[titferbrains]

She goes down like a dream in the morning, looks tired, yawns, give a little whinge, I take her up and cuddle her an put her down, she whinges a bit more then goes to sleep.

At night we give her a bottle before bed, and then a little cuddle, she's usually sleepy, we put her down and she seems quite relaxed, then she cries when I leave. She cries and settles then cries again and gets worked up on and off till I go up, comfort, leave, she cries again - think she drops off out of exhaustion rather than anything else. Any ideas for helping them to wind down at this age?

I even let her have a bit of boob till she was sleepy tonight (trying to wind down bfing) and she still cried. WE're going away for the weekend once in Aug and once in Sept so I don't want to feed her to sleep unless absolutely necessary. Frustrated that I know she can go to sleep normally but seems to keep herself awake at night.

Any advice? Could it be part of sep anxiety?

possibly. My DS went through stage of this and we made sure he had the same couple of comfort blanket toy things and a music player and said the same words as we put him down every night. Controlled crying is not for us so I never left him more than a couple of minutes before going in to re settle him. It didn't take long before he used his comfort blanket toys to self soothe.

Same when my (2.4) DS was the same age. I never left the room - I sat next to him for a while with my hand on his chest while reading a book, then gradually moved away and out the door. He's been a mostly confident sleeper since.

it's all about helping her develop her confidence in sleeping and dropping off, at a time when she's probably processing tons of information and hitting some major developmental milestones IMO.

I don't think there's anything that wrong with feeding to sleep either, what a lovely way to drop off . particularly if teething and needing extra comfort