Sleep training advice

[Italianshark]

So we have sleep trained our 19mo successfully (to a point).

We did gradual retreat which worked great to get us from rocking her to sleep to her falling asleep on her own in the cot. We couldn't get out the door though without having to introduce an element of 'controlled crying'

Did this 2/3 nights with never more than 7 mins of crying which was great I believe (went from 2/5/7) and we can now pop her in cot and walk out.

However it's almost like it's habit but she cries for a minute now every time then lays straight down and gets on with getting to sleep, stroking her hair etc.

What is that about? A last desperate plea to stay up? Will that stop? Because ok, she goes to sleep straight after Which is great but I thought she would now go to bed happily. I still hate her crying even just for a minute.

Probably fear of missing out, fighting sleep. Don’t worry about it

What is that about?

It's called a protest cry. It's to see if you might give in to what she wants this once, but quickly realises that it wont happen.

Imagine you just gave your toddler a bar of chocolate and toddler sees the other 4 in the multi-pack and wants a second one. You say no, because that's the best thing for your child even though it's not the answer the child wanted to hear. You would get a similar protest cry in that situation. It's not distress, it's a case of "awww please let me have my way" even when you know "my way" is not best for the child.

@BabySleepTeacherUK

Yeah that makes sense. It's like when I finish a bottle of wine and then go to open a new one and my boyfriend says no 🤣🤣