Have we majorly messed up?

[rabidrant]

Our 18-, almost 19-month old used to sleep through the night. Bedtime routine started at 7:30 with his bath, bedtime story, bottle, bed routine and him falling asleep between 8 and 9 p.m. sleeping through the night till we wake him up at 6:15 to get him ready for daycare. Lately he's been going through a major bout of sleep regression, most likely due to the time change falling in the same week when the daycare was closed due to Spring Break, so his whole routine was just off.

We are slowly dealing with the sleep regression, hoping it gets better, but now we are wondering if we did wrong by him (and ourselves by extension) by getting him used to falling asleep in our arms before we set him in his crib. Even though he's older, we are thinking of trying the fade out method (e.g., putting him down before he's fully asleep, patting his back for a bit, then reducing the amount of time we spend patting and soothing till he's used to falling asleep on his own). The question is: Will this work considering he's older than the recommended 4- to 6-months?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rapaines]

@rabidrant Bedtime is too late. And yes, personally I would tend to say doing things like letting the child fall asleep first with you then be transferred creates that expectation for them and does not foster independent sleep. For a child that old I would do straight up CIO because check ins will likely exacerbate the problem, but it’s always worth a try.