After age 2, I’m just relaxing

My wife and I have sleep trained our baby successfully using Ferber when we did not feel that she could safely co sleep with us. That went great, she slept like 11 hours straight all the time. Then she turned 2. Then she learned how to climb out of her crib independently.

As soon as that happened, one side of the crib was replaced with a smaller side wall to transition it into a toddler bed. We kept to our same bedtime routine, our child would go sit in her bed, read a book, but as soon as we got up she would just toddle behind us into bed.

I immediately just gave up, she crawled into bed, and after digging into blankets like a dog she slept the whole night. And I did too.

I had a moment where I was laying in bed with her snuggling and I thought and imagined what sleep training this toddler would be like. I could close the door, let her scream and shout and cry and beg for comfort. But why? It used to be a safety reason, we wanted to reduce risk of SIDS, and because I’m an active sleeper I worried about rolling her off the bed.

Now she is 2, she can speak in full sentences about her needs and desires and worries. Very different to ignore a person saying “please, want to cuddle dada, scared in the dark!”. I would feel like a monster.

So I’m doing the sleepy lady shuffle. Sitting in the dark with her while she chooses to sit in her bed, no punishment or threats. Very chill. I leave, sometimes she comes with. We can start this routine at 7:30, 8, 8:30, 9 etc, she doesn’t really mind because she’s a small human being and she for some reason likes to hang out with me. She sits in her room for a bit, reads a book in her bed, and then later climbs up with me, digs and rolls around like an alligator, and sleeps through the night. She smiles and hugs me and gives me a kiss on the nose in the morning and calls the dog over to kiss her feet.

Some nights, she cuddles me and then goes to her room for a while, lays down, hugs a stuffed animal for a while, before giving up and coming over to me in bed.

I’ll keep doing my little shuffling. I’ll keep having quiet time and down regulating stuff in the evening and using red lamps and reading calm books and listening to white noise and having the interior temperature set to 65 or less and having no fear or anxiety because I know she can smell it on me like a trained investigative hound and having the same timing and meals and language around bedtime and consistency with my partner and nap schedules and diet and lack of major life changes and outdoor time and play time and everything else that this cool little person has helped me to strategize and track and troubleshoot and research.

And, so far, my little person will keep hanging out with me, watching all these orchestrations with maybe a little interest, and perhaps a slight bit of confusion, as she waits for us to go to bed.