Sleeping better despite hunger?

I’m a fit 39F, 5’6”, and 127#, but my weight would often creep up to 133 prior to adopting IF as a lifestyle. My crutch has always been being afraid of being hungry at bedtime, eating too much at/after dinner, and this sabotaging my hard-fought daily caloric deficit!

I’ve done IF a few times in the past as a short term strategy to lose that stubborn extra 5 vanity pounds (and it worked!). However, I struggled to maintain my “fighting weight” despite exercising 4-5x/week when I returned to my strict 3 smallish meals per day strategy. I found it impossible to eat a smallish, early dinner and go to bed mildly hungry under the 3 meal system. I’d either eat a big dinner or a snack right before bed out of fear of being hungry at bedtime because even a slight caloric deficit made it impossible for me to sleep!

Flash forward to today. I’ve been doing IF for a month and I’ve been consistent with a 16:8, 11am-7pm eating window. I’m trying to each a big dinner to stave on hunger later or a medium sized dinner with a small snack toward the end of my window (I usually eat dinner at 6pm, rarely 8pm). Eating a big enough dinner is tricky because I was previously trying to eat a small dinner and that feeling of fullness is a bit scary (although when I lean into it, I feel awesome) but I’m finding lately that I can sleep despite being at the same caloric deficit as before and feeling mildly hungry. Is this because I’m fasting more throughout the daytime and my body is less afraid of the hunger signal at night?

This is why I think I’ll be able to stick with this, but I wonder, do the more experienced folks here have this experience? Thanks!