My 16mo has never been a good sleeper, but things have inexplicably transformed for the better over the past few months. She used to have two states in the bed: crying or asleep. Now she has a totally new state of lying in bed awake, sort of calmly. I say "sort of" calmly because she often tosses and turns and thrashes around, sometimes even starts talking or singing, but isn't crying. We co-sleep, and now I actually often don't notice when she first wakes up because it doesn't start with an anguished, explosive cry. These quieter wakings most often happen during the early morning hours (2-5am) when she's not quite so tired, and then she often has another deeper sleep period until about 8am.
My question: Are we finally on the road to "sleep maturity"? Is this a normal developmental progression? More importantly, what should I do? Should I let her have early these hours to flop around in the bed with occasional cuddles and shushing to try to get her back to sleep? Should I withhold the cuddles and pretend that I'm asleep? Or should I be more proactive about taking her out of the bed to bounce or rock her back to sleep? I can get her back to sleep *much* quicker this way and we are all much better rested in the morning, and I don't want her to get used to the rhythm of several hours of "awake time" in the early morning. My husband, in particular, isn't a fan of getting smacked in the back repeatedly for several hours in the middle of the night
Then again, if she's truly learning how to put herself back to sleep, I definitely don't want to stand in the way. This is new territory for us, as until recently she had nearly no capacity to lie in the bed, awake, without crying. Any advice would be much appreciated, as we are currently all pretty sleep-deprived and I can't think very clearly!
My question: Are we finally on the road to "sleep maturity"? Is this a normal developmental progression? More importantly, what should I do? Should I let her have early these hours to flop around in the bed with occasional cuddles and shushing to try to get her back to sleep? Should I withhold the cuddles and pretend that I'm asleep? Or should I be more proactive about taking her out of the bed to bounce or rock her back to sleep? I can get her back to sleep *much* quicker this way and we are all much better rested in the morning, and I don't want her to get used to the rhythm of several hours of "awake time" in the early morning. My husband, in particular, isn't a fan of getting smacked in the back repeatedly for several hours in the middle of the night
Then again, if she's truly learning how to put herself back to sleep, I definitely don't want to stand in the way. This is new territory for us, as until recently she had nearly no capacity to lie in the bed, awake, without crying. Any advice would be much appreciated, as we are currently all pretty sleep-deprived and I can't think very clearly!
