Sleep success!

It's been 2 months (starting at 19 months) since Tom has taken over the bedtime routine. He reads books with her, I say goodnight towards the start of that, and then he turns the light off and puts her into her crib. Because she generally doesn't like to be alone, he would have to pat her to sleep on her back with his hand. if he stopped, she would look at him, sometimes getting up and sometimes taking his hand and putting it on her chest.

In order to get her to the path of independence, we've made a new rule that daddy shall not pat her to sleep. He will sit next to the crib, but he will not pat. She would occasionally look up to see that he was still there but generally she was ok without the patting. The next step was to move his chair farther from the crib. Knowing he was still there in the room, she would go to sleep on her own. In the case that she was too wide awake and had trouble sleeping, he would leave the room to let her cry it out a little, and that she did. Of course he came back.

Tonight was a momentous occasion; she tossed and turn for a bit but was clearly trying to settle in to sleep. Because Tom is not really near her crib too much, she doesn't seem to look for him much. Tonight, he was able to leave the room while she tossed and she didn't even notice! Eventually she fell asleep on her own. This is a huge deal!!

Also, her middle of the night wakings seems to have ended. For the past 3 or so nights, she has slept up until 5:30 am. At this point, we don't try to put her back to sleep anymore. I think things changed because one night, she woke up at 3:30 am; we were too tired to go to her so we didn't. When I woke up at 5:30 am, I heard her still. So Tom went to her, put her back to sleep, and she slept until 7 am. So I think her body realized that she should just continue sleep. Hopefully if she does wake up again, she will exercise her new skill to fall asleep on her own without needing help.