To try the FERBER method??

[Mamabear3017]

DS is 7 months Friday.

His sleeping at night is horrendous, if I put him down he screams and will scream until I pick him up.

He used to go down with minimal fuss from 7-2am.

I'm at a loss as to what to do, my evenings are now spent tending to him to try get him to sleep. Most butts I give up and go bed at around 8-8:30 and have him next to me just so he'll sleep.

Please someone help me??

I'm considering the Ferber method solely because I'm at a loss as to what to do.

I've put it on here because I'm desperate for help.

*ferber not father

We did a form of controlled crying with my son. We were on our knees, mentally and physically. Under guidance from the HV (who incidentally hated the term crying, as it implied that the aim was to have them cry. She called it controlled sleeping, as that what we were aiming for) we left him for 2 minutes, then went back and reassured, going up in two minute increments. We never got to more than 10 minutes. My son was happier because he was less tired and could go to sleep when he needed, rather then having to rely on me to put him to sleep.
I wouldn’t do it when he’s poorly though. Good luck.

It might be a good idea to get this moved to the sleep board - some really experienced posters there who may be able to help.

Per my book Ferber is not cry it out. It's leaving for increasing intervals then coming back to reassure for 2 minutes then leaving again, he has suggestions but you can set the intervals to whatever length you feel comfortable with so the baby never cries for too long. We did it at about 8/9 months and it was uncomfortable the first couple of tries but it worked so well, she fell asleep after no more than the third interval. My baby was waking every 1-2 hours and would only be fed back to sleep. You do have to wait for that mythical time where there is no illness or teething to try it though! It has gone slightly to pot recently due to a run of teething/holidays/illness/age regression but she still reliably goes down at 7 and sleeps till at least 2-3. Good luck whatever you decide to try x

MrsPeel - that seems a little disingenuous to me. I mean sure, you want them to sleep, but they ARE crying.

I think people use all this terminology because saying "I leave my child to scream themselves stupid in the hope I can get some sleep" doesn't sound great. Believe me, I get it. If my twins don't start sleeping better soon I'm likely to end up in some form of institution. By 7 months I was exhausted, now at 13 months there literally isn't the vocabulary for how exhausted I am. But when they wake up and cry it's because they need something from me, usually milk or a cuddle. When they get it, 90% of the time they go right back to sleep. There have been periods where they wake up and won't go back to sleep for hours too, but the latest one of those has passed. I don't believe for a second that they've figured out if they wake themselves up they get milk and cuddles - I couldn't do that. If I woke up in the night for for some reason couldn't walk or take care of myself, and my husband ignored me so he could get more sleep, I'd be livid - and I'm an adult who can rationalise it. If an adult needs assistance in the night, they need a night carer. I'm not sure why our responsibilities as parents should shut down for 8-12 hours a day.

That's just my opinion of course. I am very sensitive about this subject since one of my twins spent 2 months in nicu and I wasn't there for him at night. I can still picture him crying for me and me never coming. No way I'm going to do that by choice, even if I am broken!

I agree that there’s an element of semantics to it, it’s much nicer not to refer to crying when you think of these methods. However in the long run there has been far LESS crying from my child because he is able to go to sleep. I’ve watched him drift off often to know that this isn’t a silent ‘no ones going to come’ horror thing, it’s that he can do it himself - so he is much less distressed than he was in those months when he was desperate to sleep but needed me to make it happen.
Having said all of that, I didn’t have the nicu experience, so I fully accept that I might have a different perspective if I did.
As with most things to do with parenting - there are loads of different experiences and loads of different opinions.

I did something a bit gentler with mine. When they were about 7-8months and I transitioned them into their own room, I spent a week sleeping in there with them. Expected no sleep that week. If they cried comforted them... Patting on the back if it worked, if not picking them up, and then putting down when settled. Then did gradual retreat. Took about two weeks.

Youngest is eleven months now... Sometimes takes a while to go down (up to an hour or so), again patting on the back and gradual retreat, but then largely sleeps through (may wake for one feed and quickly resettle).

I struggle with leaving them to cry, makes me stressed and upset. The baby has had to cry sometimes as hes the youngest of four, and sometimes have had to pop him in a safe place to deal with one of the others, or put him in his cot and quickly put the others to bed.... But I hate it, don't think I could do it as a strategy.

Have you considered more gentle sleep training? It does take longer and it isn't perfect but less hard on parents and baby. I got dh on board though and he dealt with the other kids and dinner etc while I was doing it.

Also tammy I work on a neonatal unit. The babies aren't left to cry. They mostly just behave wonderfully, don't know how the nurses make that happen, but if they cry they get cuddled! Your twin wouldn't have been left to cry for you!

Oh I know Nemo, the staff were absolutely wonderful - I just have some issues around it, I feel like they were more of a mother to him than I was at a really crucial time. I know they did the R absolute best to soothe him whenever he was distressed but he was in an incubator for the first month due to a line in his leg so he didn't get as many cuddles as he would normally have done. Plus it's so tough with twins - I don't have enough hands to give them as many cuddles as they want / need, sometimes they'll have to cry while I change the others bum for example. So I make sure that any time I can pick them up when they're crying I do, whatever time it is!

Okay so I was desperate & needed him to settle.

I put him down at 6 as he was tired.

He cried from 6 until 7:20pm, I went in to settle but nothing settled him, he wanted me to pick him up.

I was about to go in and get him out when he finally fell back to sleep.

He woke through the night but only for his dummy & went straight back to sleep.

He woke at 6:40 this morning, got him in bed with me as I expected him to stay up. At7:00 he got tired, I gave him his dummy & within 2 minutes he was asleep.

At 10:00, he started moaning, I gave his dummy & put him in his cot. No crying nothing. Straight to sleep.

Did I feel like the worst mum letting him cry last night?? Yep....I felt horrendous.

However, he's not even crying when he's going for naps now.

I guess the next few nights will tell me if it worked.

I don't like the method but I was at a loss as to what to do.

Mamaduckling. Ferrber is somewhere between controlled crying and cry it out. You pop them down awake, return periodically for a reassuring pat then leave. No leaving them just to cry like CIO but also no resettling like CC or PUPD.

Oh well, whatever I did, it worked. Sounds like some kind of combo!