We started sleep training a la Ferber on Saturday night. We all have been having really rough times sleeping, and while I was hesitant to start anything too soon for him developmentally, something had to give; Jack’s eyes in the morning were red and had circles and bags on top of bags from poor sleep. We read Ferber’s book (lots of very interesting information on sleep and cycles and things to watch for), and we decided that we needed to change our bedime routine, cut out the fafa (pacifier) usage to get to sleep for naps and bedtime. Jack couldn’t really manage to keep it in his mouth, and we couldn’t handle getting up every 15 minutes for several hours in a row to pop it back in. The middle of the night feedings weren’t problematic, but they have been becomin more and more often and unpredictable–sometimes several times a night every 30-45 minutes but only lasting long enough to get him back to sleep (yes, I was Mommy Pacifier).
Ben and I really weren’t sure what we needed to do, but Ferber’s book (the only one immediately on the shelves at Barnes and Noble) made sense to us, and his approach, which has been maligned so much, really didn’t seem all that terrible once we started reading it. Granted, I had no comparison with the first edition so it could have been much harsher back then.
From this, we realized that Jack’s sleep associations were with being fed and rocked to sleep, then given a pacifier after that once he was in bed. We also realized that we were acting too late on his sleep cues, and he was actually overtired by the time we managed to put him down at night, so there was no way he could be put into his crib awake enough to settle himself down.
SO, Saturday seemed as good a night as any and seemed like the place to start. We decided to cut out the fafa cold turkey and make sure he had a lovey, in this case a hounddoggy made of minky fabric. We changed his bedtime routine, feeding him up before bath time with nursing and cereal, followed by a bath, a much smaller bottle (so he wouldn’t rev up his metabolism and also be uncomfortable from wet diapers), followed by two story books. We steeled ourselves for the regimen: soothe him with words and a pat or two and tell him we love him even though we wouldn’t pick him up, wait 3 minutes, soothe him with the same routine, wait 5 minutes, soothe him with the same and then wait 7 minutes, returning every 7 minutes thereafter.
To our surprise, Jack was asleep a few minutes into the first 7-minute period (at 7:00) He awoke at 7:45 feel asleep in the middle of the post-soothing 5-minute period. The next time he feel asleep after the 3 minute wait.
The hairy part came when he woke up just after midnight. Ferber specifically says it’s cruel to cut out cold turkey the feedings, and we had no intention of doing so. However, we had failed to take into account that Jack’s normal waking to feed at 1 would be different since he had gone to sleep at 7 instead of 8. We started the routine, and made it to the 7-minute periods and Jack was still crying. After about 40 minutes, we gave in and I fed him, feeling horrible that we had misinterpreted the waking up and the need to be fed and done exactly what Ferber had said not to by essentially cutting out the feeding cold turkey. Jack went to sleep after that, and I was preparing myself for what had now become standard routine for him, which was waking every 30-45 minutes until it was officially morning time.
But he didn’t. He slept until 5:15, woke up and ate, and went back to sleep until 6:45.
The next day, Sunday, I was waiting for the naps to continue with their normal awfulness, full of fussing (normal naps take between 10-30 minutes of soothing and returning to put the fafa back in his mouth, and have only lasted 30 minutes on average). We continued with the routine of the previous night, using no pacifier and allowing him to fuss for 3 minutes and so on before returning to soothe him. The first nap he took, he fussed for one minute. He put himself to sleep. Let me repeat that: HE PUT HIMSELF TO SLEEP. He has done that ever since.
Last night, we kept to the new routine. Jack went to sleep at 7:30. Did he wake up in 30? No. 45? No. Did he wake up at 3:15????? YES. He ate, a brief little nursing session, and went back to bed until we woke him at 6:15, to try and keep him on a daily schedule.
It may not work for everyone, but it worked for us. There is hope, and I feel alot more able to do things (and motivated to accomplish things) now that feel there is light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe tonight I, too, will sleep like a baby.
