Adventures in Ferberizing

Chalk another one up to the list of things I never thought I'd do as a parent, but have already done in a mere six months' time. Ferberizing! Gasp!!

After reading the 2006 edition of "How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems," I felt like I understood Ferber's method of sleep training in a way that I'd previously misconceptualized. I'd always thought it sounded cruel for everyone involved. But suddenly it sounded appealing. Of course, Henry also helped me and Brian to make this decision. Personally, there were a few reasons why I thought we should make the leap into tough sleep love.

First, Henry continued to need me to put him to sleep. Often he'd fall asleep nursing, but sometimes he'd need to be bounced. Not rocked, but bounced. As he's approaching 20 pounds, the practicalities of this approach have been weighing on me. Literally. Then there was the frustrating process of Henry's wakings during the night. We'd been pretty lucky overall, with him sleeping for large chunks of time. But there were those nights. Those torturous nights when Henry wakes up every two hours and can only be lulled back to sleep by nursing. Frustrating for me, and frustrating for Brian when he futilely attempted to help put Henry back to sleep. A third factor in my reasoning was the fact that Henry had spontaneously fallen asleep a few times in the past week. He fell asleep in a restaurant on the Cape, which was totally out of character for him. And then he put himself back to sleep in the early morning after we heard him playing for a while. So I had reassurance that he was physically capable of this feat. And finally, there are my sleep habits. I've always been a restless sleeper, and can remember hours of lying in bed trying to fall asleep from a very young age. I figure, if I can help Henry to learn how to fall asleep on his own, maybe he'll avoid inheriting my somewhat unhealthy sleep trends.

I held off on posting anything about this until now because...well, I'm not sure why really. I guess I thought it might be a failed experiment, in which case all of my good feelings toward Ferber might go out the window. In summary, though, as of Sunday night, I'd call it a success.
A hard-fought success. No one wants to hear their child cry, no matter how helpful it may be in the long run.

Part One, written on Thursday morning...

Night One:
We began the experiment on Wednesday night. As I write this section of the post, it's Thursday morning. Henry's napping, and I'm drinking coffee. It was a long, hard night. But all in all, probably not as bad as I'd feared. Henry went down in his crib wide awake at 7:35, and cried off and on until he fell asleep around 8:10. During that time, we employed Ferber's progressive waiting method. In a nutshell, you go in to reassure (but not pick up) the baby at increasing intervals of time, beginning with every three minutes. This is designed to help the baby know that he hasn't been abandoned and to be less afraid. The baby knows you're there, but he needs to soothe himself to sleep. After that, Henry was up pretty frequently beginning around midnight. But, he never cried for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Day Two:
As I wrote in the last entry, Henry is napping. He began showing signs that he was tired (rubbing his eyes, etc), so I put him in the crib. He cried, of course, but within fifteen minutes he had put himself to sleep. A miracle! The dogs across the street were barking loudly and woke him briefly, but after a few cries he was back to napping. This is a real landmark event, as naptime has always been the most difficult sleeping issue for Henry.


Part Two, written on Sunday night...

Henry's asleep now, after seven minutes of crying. The seven minutes were excruciating, as all of the crying has been in this process of sleep training. However, each night the amount of crying lessens and Henry soothes himself more quickly. He's also able to soothe himself to sleep for naptime after approximately five to ten minutes. While I am thrilled with this progress, I have to admit that part of me has some lingering doubts about the method. Every time I hear him cry I wonder again if I'm leaving a lasting impression of neglect or abandonment. It's a very short period of time when he's upset, but I hate the thought of any time at all passing without an immediate response. Henry doesn't seem any worse for the wear. He is, in fact, sleeping substantially longer overnight than ever before, and he's been quite a happy camper during the day. After the first night, we only had one occasion when he cried during the middle of the night. Otherwise, he's been soundly sleeping from 7:30 pm until about 5:30 am. Then he nurses and goes back to sleep for another two hours or so. Best sleep we've gotten since the little guy made his arrival into our lives. So hopefully that makes a little crying worthwhile in the long run.

I have been rambling about sleep for far too long now. You're here to see Henry, anyway, so here are some cute videos of his recent developments. He's crawling like a pro, standing up constantly, and babbling in his cute little Henry lingo.