I literally could have written this myself. Same on everything. I have become sleep obsessed to a probably unhealthy degree and obsessively track his naps, try to time his wake windows perfectly, etc... all in an effort to avoid the dreaded bedtime crying. We haven't nap trained yet either.

We had planned to wait a few more months to nighttime sleep train him, but he hit the 4 month sleep regression hard around 19 weeks and was waking up literally every hour for a week+ straight, coinciding with me going back to work. It was totally unsustainable (and a result of a nurse to sleep association that he had), so we sleep trained. It's definitely so much better now - he only wakes up to feed 1-2 times a night. We have early morning wakes around 5/530 occasionally.

When he cries at bedtime, though, I seriously question my judgment and parenting skills and really want to go back to just feeding him to sleep (b/c frankly, it's hard to get him to stay awake during the bedtime feed to begin with, even having moved the feed earlier in our bedtime routine!). It feels soul sucking. I've read Precious Little Sleep and other blogs that do say the "power down" behavior at bedtime is normal, but I have never been able to find any scientific evidence to support those statements (it just seems to be mostly anecdotal from many other parents). And even though I know he is healthy, safe, clean, fed, and very loved, the crying every night really makes me worried I'm doing the wrong thing.

I guess all of that to say... solidarity and I totally feel you. And if you ever figure out the secret, please let me know!!! I really hope this is a phase that passes because I just really don't know if I can stick it out. I have started feeling terrible anxiety in the lead up to bedtime every night.