They require training actually. It won’t happen on its own. You need to decide to stop carrying/rocking to sleep, and start patting for every nap/sleep. Since your LO is older, you can tell her that it’s nap time, and that you’re going to be there to pat her to sleep.
For my first child, she needed to be rocked till 18 months, then we couldn’t do it anymore (too tiring/heavy). She couldn’t sleep with patting by then so we had to do the cry out method. Thank God she learnt it quickly (heart pain). Since then, she went to sleep on her own every day.
For my second child, we started the patting method after 2 months. Works more than half the time. Continuing the sleep training process now to get her to sleep more.
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Mama of 1 adorable princess