We're "crying it out" tonight

[Utoo]

So our beautiful daughter Addie is 4 1/2 months old now, and she's the most adorable thing in the whole entire world. Except in order to sleep, she needs to be swaddled, rocked, shushed, held sideways, and given a pacifier, and she wakes up 2-5 times a night. So tonight, after having read like 4 sleep books (okay, so Mrs. Utoo read them all... ), we're finally doing Ferber.

We put her down around 8 tonight & she bawled right off the bat. Checked on her after 3 minutes & still crying. Went in 5 minutes later, then 10 minutes after that---still screaming. So hard! But you know what? Twenty-five minutes after we put her down, she was passed out.

So....fingers crossed.....hopefully this won't be a terrible ordeal forever & Addie can figure out this sleep thing before too long.





man, i don't think i've ever used that many smilies...

 

[VintagePunk]

So our beautiful daughter Addie is 4 1/2 months old now, and she's the most adorable thing in the whole entire world. Except in order to sleep, she needs to be swaddled, rocked, shushed, held sideways, and given a pacifier, and she wakes up 2-5 times a night. So tonight, after having read like 4 sleep books (okay, so Mrs. Utoo read them all... ), we're finally doing Ferber.

We put her down around 8 tonight & she bawled right off the bat. Checked on her after 3 minutes & still crying. Went in 5 minutes later, then 10 minutes after that---still screaming. So hard! But you know what? Twenty-five minutes after we put her down, she was passed out.

So....fingers crossed.....hopefully this won't be a terrible ordeal forever & Addie can figure out this sleep thing before too long.





man, i don't think i've ever used that many smilies...

Wow, good luck!

My daughter was the worst sleeper ever, and I tried that for a night. About 2 or 3 hours in, she was STILL screaming at the top of her lungs, and I couldn't take it anymore. I said screw it, picked her up, and that was the end of that experiment.

She continued to be a poor sleeper, often sleeping with me up till she started school. On the bright side, they eventually do sleep better. You rarely see a teenager refusing to sleep.

 

[blm]

noticed your thread, and I wish you the best of luck, Utoo.
I remember those days and I have heard great things bout Richard Ferbers method.
I think overall- things come in stages. it gets better and then for awhile, something makes them change. and then it gets better again. trading off, patience, and lots of humor will get you through. good luck with your wonderful baby.

 

[cobl04]

What's Ferbers?? Leave them till they get exhausted??

 

[mono]

from Wiki:

Primarily, it involves progressively training children to put themselves to sleep autonomously (in other words, fall asleep on their own). While some regard it as a cold, callous approach, most experts regard it as simply one of many possible approaches in dealing with children who have difficulty falling asleep alone. Some people do not feel that getting a baby to sleep alone is a worthwhile objective, and instead advocate the "family bed" or co-sleeping approach.

 

[Utoo]

What's Ferbers?? Leave them till they get exhausted??

Kiiind of, but not really. Basically, you're causing them to figure out how to fall asleep on their own without "negative sleep associations." We all have sleep associations---I need my pillow to be molded in a certain way to be comfortable. And we all wake up at least once during the night---but if our sleep associations are just how they were when we went to bed, then we go back...you wake up for half a second, roll to your side or whatever, and go back to sleep. But if the associations are different, then it's harder to go back. For example, if you wake up and your pillow's gone, you look for it. If it's on the floor, you figure you knocked it off and it's all good an you go back to sleep. If, to use Ferber's example in his book, you wake up in the middle of the night and not only do you not have your pillow, but you're on the living room floor---you get pretty wigged out and it's definitely harder to go back!

Basically, for Addie, she's gotten to the point where she needs to be swaddled, rocked, shushed, etc. in order to fall asleep. When she wakes up in the middle of the night and neither my wife nor I are there, she's not being rocked or shushed, and her pacifier's on the mattress instead of her mouth-----it's like she's waking up on the living room floor!

Ferber and methods like it are essentially about getting your baby to not need the sleep associations that require someone else to put her to sleep, and instead to learn how to put herself to sleep----especially for the times that she wakes up in the middle of the night and doesn't really need anything except to make sure that the associations are all still in order. The part that sucks is that the first few nights pretty much do involve her crying until she figures out how to calm herself on her own. But for a lot of babies, it often takes just a few nights, with each night supposedly getting better until they sleep on their own after a few nights............hopefully!

 

[Utoo]

from Wiki:

Some people do not feel that getting a baby to sleep alone is a worthwhile objective, and instead advocate the "family bed" or co-sleeping approach.

Kind of, but not exactly.... Co-sleeping doesn't necessarily involve the kid learning how to sleep or even sleeping well. There are plenty of stories of co-sleeping kids who need to be rubbed, rocked, or something else in order to fall asleep, and still wake up multiple times through the night; not all co-sleeping kids fall asleep just because the parents are there, but instead still need something else.

Co-sleeping has its own mixed bag of benefits and drawbacks, and I wouldn't necessarily say that "sleeping through the night" is one of the main intentions of it. Just to clarify.

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

utoo,

I went thru this with my son, he was basically the same as Addie. I read all the books too.. Cuz it was making me lose my mind him waking up so often... I too, used this method and it worked over a few days or so. He was better for it in the end.. Even though I lost sleep (many hours) listening to him cry and scream till he wore himself out. It killed me not to go in there but I stuck to my guns and it paid off in the end. Don't feel guilty or let other people make you feel any less of a parent. What you are doing is the right thing..
Hang in there!

 

[fah]

Ferber

 

[Tiger Edge]

I wish they would do this to my little brother already. He's two years old and he can't fall asleep on his own. Drives me bonkers.

Utoo

My parents did this to both my brother and me when we were wee babies and we sleep like rocks now.

 

[Schmeg]

I misread 4 1/2 years at first.

Good luck; I'm not a parent but I've heard lots of parents say you have to do this if you ever want them to sleep on their own. Imagine if she did get to 4 1/2 years needing all that to fall asleep!

 

[cobl04]

Kiiind of, but not really. Basically, you're causing them to figure out how to fall asleep on their own without "negative sleep associations." We all have sleep associations---I need my pillow to be molded in a certain way to be comfortable. And we all wake up at least once during the night---but if our sleep associations are just how they were when we went to bed, then we go back...you wake up for half a second, roll to your side or whatever, and go back to sleep. But if the associations are different, then it's harder to go back. For example, if you wake up and your pillow's gone, you look for it. If it's on the floor, you figure you knocked it off and it's all good an you go back to sleep. If, to use Ferber's example in his book, you wake up in the middle of the night and not only do you not have your pillow, but you're on the living room floor---you get pretty wigged out and it's definitely harder to go back!

Basically, for Addie, she's gotten to the point where she needs to be swaddled, rocked, shushed, etc. in order to fall asleep. When she wakes up in the middle of the night and neither my wife nor I are there, she's not being rocked or shushed, and her pacifier's on the mattress instead of her mouth-----it's like she's waking up on the living room floor!

Ferber and methods like it are essentially about getting your baby to not need the sleep associations that require someone else to put her to sleep, and instead to learn how to put herself to sleep----especially for the times that she wakes up in the middle of the night and doesn't really need anything except to make sure that the associations are all still in order. The part that sucks is that the first few nights pretty much do involve her crying until she figures out how to calm herself on her own. But for a lot of babies, it often takes just a few nights, with each night supposedly getting better until they sleep on their own after a few nights............hopefully!

Ah ok, thanks much for the clarification! I'll go ask mum if I needed that.

 

[Utoo]

^ No worries.



So, UPDATE: Last night was good---for the first half. She fell asleep after 25 minutes the first time, then 8 minutes the second, then 2 minutes the third. Then, she cried almost the whole time from 4am to 6am. That was our fault---we were bad parents and thought that we couldn't feed her right away or else we'd kind of erase what we'd done. But we caved and fed her and she slept great afterward.

Tonight, we just put her down a little bit ago & it took her only 8 minutes---so hopefully the middle-of-the-night wakings will be even shorter like they were last night. Fingers crossed!!!

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

that's a good start...


things will only get better...

 

[anitram]

Good luck with that!

My Mom apparently did that with me, although I wasn't the worst sleeper. I'd scream when they put me down but I wasn't waking up too many times. Then she decided she didn't like the method and didn't use it on my brother.

Interestingly I've been a lifelong insomniac and he can sleep standing up if needed. I don't think it has anything to do with this, but maybe I can blame my parents and get some sympathy points?

 

[Angela Harlem]

Kiiind of, but not really. Basically, you're causing them to figure out how to fall asleep on their own without "negative sleep associations." We all have sleep associations---I need my pillow to be molded in a certain way to be comfortable. And we all wake up at least once during the night---but if our sleep associations are just how they were when we went to bed, then we go back...you wake up for half a second, roll to your side or whatever, and go back to sleep. But if the associations are different, then it's harder to go back. For example, if you wake up and your pillow's gone, you look for it. If it's on the floor, you figure you knocked it off and it's all good an you go back to sleep. If, to use Ferber's example in his book, you wake up in the middle of the night and not only do you not have your pillow, but you're on the living room floor---you get pretty wigged out and it's definitely harder to go back!

Basically, for Addie, she's gotten to the point where she needs to be swaddled, rocked, shushed, etc. in order to fall asleep. When she wakes up in the middle of the night and neither my wife nor I are there, she's not being rocked or shushed, and her pacifier's on the mattress instead of her mouth-----it's like she's waking up on the living room floor!

Ferber and methods like it are essentially about getting your baby to not need the sleep associations that require someone else to put her to sleep, and instead to learn how to put herself to sleep----especially for the times that she wakes up in the middle of the night and doesn't really need anything except to make sure that the associations are all still in order. The part that sucks is that the first few nights pretty much do involve her crying until she figures out how to calm herself on her own. But for a lot of babies, it often takes just a few nights, with each night supposedly getting better until they sleep on their own after a few nights............hopefully!

That sounds absolutely exhaustive.

Our first 2 were brilliant babies, sleeping through from 6-8 weeks onward and now at age 2 and 5 they love sleep, think bed time is a treat, sleep in in the mornings, like a story on the lounge before bed and that is it. Blissful nights for everyone. Now with the 3rd, we're fearful our good luck must surely have run out. I have no idea if what methods we fumbled through on the first 2 were what made it so successful, or they are just naturally good sleepers. 2 friends have both recently had babies and the only advice I could give them was to never use night wakings the same way as day wakings, from birth. By that, I mean, as soon as you get them home from the hospital there is a clear difference in daylight and night hours. At night feeds and nappy changes, use a dim light in another room to change them in. Resist talkig to them, resist cuddling, singing, rocking, anything which will stimulate and wake them more. You want your groggy but hungry baby to not really associate night time as a time to wake up properly. That was the time I'd change the bum first, in the near dark if needed! And then feed back to sleep. Daytime was another story, though. That's when the cuddles and rocking and playing with a blanket and so on happened. Essentially, nights were kept to a minimum. I might sound awfully regimented, but it might have been what helped. I wish I knew.

Good luck, Utoo! I don't envy parents with difficult sleepers. Sleeping and eating are 2 things I'd just not be able to handle a child of mine being fussy with. Mine eat like labradors and sleep like the dead. They've got their faults in other areas, but I can handle those!

 

[zuropa_fit]

Oh Utoo! Good luck. Like Anglea's kids, my son slept thru the night very early on *ducks to avoid getting things thrown at her by other parents*. But there were a couple nights when we had to let him "cry it out" and it was heartwrenching. UGH! Hang in there. You'll reap the benefits soon. Glorious sleep...

 

[Utoo]

Thanks for the support, folks!

Last night, she went down at 8. It took her about 10 minutes to fall asleep, but then she was out until 4AM, at which point my wife fed her. Then she slept again until 8AM & started her day. Not too shabby!

 

[Lila64]

Very nice Utoo! I've been following the story from afar. We had our own story with Miss Maddy