To try Ferber method?

[ChamomileHoneyTea]

LO is 7.5 months now and I am on my knees with sleep deprivation. We co-slept until he was 7 months at which point I couldn’t deal with it. For the last 3 weeks I’ve been doing gradual retreat to coincide with moving him into his own room. We had one good night where he almost slept through about a week ago but since then nothing. He falls asleep independently for naps and at bedtime but still wakes constantly in the night, usually 4-6 times a night, and is hard to settle. Aibu to abandon this gentle method and try Ferber?

Hi OP - we did the ferber method with my first and by the third day he was sleeping through! I personally don't think it's that bad a method as you're still going in to comfort baby, rather than leaving them to cry themselves to sleep with the cry it out method.

Do what's best for you and your family OP. Sleep deprivation is so hard and waking up to 6 times a night at 7 months is a lot. How do you currently settle him when he wakes? Is he having many feeds during the night? Mine was still having 1-2 feeds in the middle of the night at that age so I wouldn't let him go hungry but I'd try reducing the amount of wake ups.

I mean it will “work”, but dig a little deeper on why….but it’s your baby OP 🤷🏼‍♀️

You being sleep deprived is no good. You need rest to be the best version of yourself, and the best Mum. You could always give it a go. As much as people reason it’s harming and dangerous, many children were raised in this way until gentle parenting became a more of a thing and it hasn’t done them any damage. You have to do what you feel best.

Also, just to add, make sure your schedule is rock solid before you start. If he's overtired or undertired then no amount of sleep training is going to force him to sleep.

Having read your OP again I see that he falls asleep independently at bedtime which makes me think it could be a schedule issue, mine drastically cut night wakeup once he could fall asleep independently.

What's the current schedule? Is he on 2 naps?

@shivawn 2 naps- first is usually 2 hours and second is 30-60 mins. Thing is I don’t know how I am supposed to create a proper schedule because this is dependent on wake up time which varies from night to night. E.g this morning woke up at 8am but yesterday was 6am.

@shivawn currently feeding once per night. When he wakes at night I go in and put my hand firmly on chest and shh him to calm him then remove and maybe repeat til he falls asleep

One of the best things you can teach your child, is how to sleep well. 3 nights of a strong and consistent method is usually enough. You’ll probably be slated, but sleep deprivation is no joke and can be incredibly damaging for weeks/months- for everyone.

There are also other sleep training methods you could consider if you don’t fancy Ferber. Which is most effective depends on baby’s temperament. I liked this site when learning all about sleep with my first:

https://www.babysleepsite.com/sleep-training/5-baby-sleep-training-methods-explained/

We used a modified version of pick up put down as I didn’t want to leave him crying for any length of time in his own. If he properly cried, I’d pick up to cuddle until settled, then put back in cot with my hand on his chest and shush (with white noise on in background). If there was a bit of fussing rather than proper cry I’d leave him in the cot (still with my hand on him shushing) so he wasn’t left alone crying/upset. If it turned into a proper cry I’d pick him up again. Once asleep I’d creep back out. I think you are supposed to get out of the room before they are asleep but this method worked really well for us. Sometimes there would be 3 or 4 pickups, sometimes 10 or 15. Any sleep training will be affected by teething, growth spurts, and regressions so don’t be disheartened if it’s up and down.

We also had (and still have at 2yo) a rule of if he wakes giving him up to 5 mins of fussing before we go in to him. How long is dependent on the tone of the cry-if he is properly upset we’ll go in more or less immediately, whereas a more feeble cry we’ll leave to see if he settles (which more often than not he does). Good luck, getting good sleep is the holy grail!

Well it will work but at what cost to your child? The Ferber method is absolutely brutal.

4 to 6 wakes ups a night is totally normal for a 7.5 month baby. It doesnt last forever. Motherhood is hard. Suck it up.

This may be why his night sleep is up the spout. When naps fall into place, night sleep tends to fall into place. But you’re not wrong – morning wake time can make it tricky. It’s good, however, to incrementally push it to where you want it. Get him up no later than 7am to help regulate his day.

A 2hr first nap suggests he is catching up on his night sleep and then a cat nap (anything less than an hour) later is leaving him overtired for the night.

At 8 months old, it’s ideal to be in 2-3 naps a day. Let’s assume he gets up at 7am, nap 1 should be at 8:30/9 (1.5-2hrs after waking), for around an hour. Nap 2 should be at 12/1pm (around 2.5-3hrs after waking from nap 1) for 1-2hrs, and, if necessary, a cat nap of 30 mins around 4pm, then bed at 7pm.

Ive no issue with sleep training, but if their naps aren’t in place, you’re just making it harder for them.

Some kids need more attention in the night and some don’t. I had one of each.

It’s exhausting and infuriating but for me leaving a baby to cry, sometimes to the point of vomiting just shouldn’t be an option.

And you don’t teach babies to sleep. It’s developmental and they get it at different times.

We did Ferber method and it worked within three nights when baby was 5 months old. People always reference babies crying until they vomit etc but I’ve never heard of that in real life among my friends who did Ferber. Certainly my son wasn’t like that. He's always been a great sleeper ever since and really likes going to bed.

Sleep training means we know when he does cry out now, there’s genuinely something wrong. Him having great uninterrupted night sleep and naps has been so beneficial for him and me.

Yeah, it might well ‘work’.

The problem is that when the true cost of what you’ve done becomes apparent, you’ll have forgotten all about the ‘Ferber method’, and won’t associate the cause and effect at all.

And at that point, you’ll be telling other people about how successful Ferber was for you when DS was a baby 🤷‍♀️

Ferberizing a baby feels wrong for a good reason.

there are other ways, do your research fully and thoroughly before you go ahead with it. It's not controversial for nothing.

We did like a modified Ferber at 8 months, was originally waking up on the hour and having 2 bottles a night (purely for comfort not hunger) - we only waited 5 mins between going in the room for each comfort and by 4th night he was sleeping through with no more night feeds.
It’s not for everyone - I sobbed the first night of doing it because I felt awful, like we’d pulled the rug from under him, but it really did work and we haven’t looked back since.

I'm on my third baby. My first, I was very PFB and never gave him a chance to self-settle. I would never leave him to cry ever. I subsequently ended up having to sit in his room for YEARS to help him get to sleep.

I don't believe it is cruel to try to encourage babies to self-settle. I believe Ferber uses timings... I wouldn't leave a baby to scream hysterically. But a bit of moaning/crying etc... yes, sometimes this helps them learn to get themselves back to sleep.

YABU. It 'works' because you're essentially teaching your baby you won't respond when they cry. It's cruel.

Can you provide any legitimate studies backing this up, please? And not the Romanian orphanage study, since it's completely not relevant.

Ferber tends to work quickly if it's going to work, apparently. If I was going to try it then I'd set a time limit and abandon if it's not working. I wouldn't keep going for weeks and weeks with no success, nor leave them crying for hours. I think it is a good idea to set your own tolerance level for this before you start, rather than going in with a mindset of "whatever it takes" (unless you are genuinely OK with that).

If you wanted another option, what I found with my DC is that once I moved them into their rooms and stuck to my plan of resettling them in their own room, they stopped waking as often. There was no leaving them crying with this method, but it did take longer than a crying type method - as in weeks, not nights, and was more disruptive to my sleep because I was going in and out of their room and staying there through failed resettles, which is frustrating. If you start this and are struggling to stick with this, then you can set yourself little "stretch goals" like - I'll try to keep them in their own room until midnight but any waks ups after midnight they can come through and then extend this to 1am, 2am, 3am etc. But the more consistent you are the quicker it works.

My DC were also older so I can't promise that it will work for a 7 month old but in theory, hopefully it might reduce wakes even if not eliminate them entirely.

It depends what you're willing to prioritise really - I don't think sleep training is totally benign, especially if it's causing extended distress for multiple nights in a row, but OTOH I don't believe that it's so incredibly harmful that it's going to cause permanent damage within the context of an otherwise responsive relationship - that's just not how relationships or brains work.

There are other situations where we opt for short term distress in order to achieve a longer term outcome, and I don't think sleep is magically different. OTOH you would respond to DC in the day, and night is not magically different. But in the daytime, we do sometimes place limits on how we respond to DC too - for example, if they are crying in the car seat, we don't take them out because we know that it is needed for safety. Or if they were crying for some dangerous thing, we might comfort them and offer them an alternative thing, but we wouldn't let them have the dangerous item.

People get really polarised about sleep and I think it's unhelpful.

Ridiculous comment. You really need to look up 'brutal' in the dictionary. It's assisting your child to sleep well, which will only benefit them and you.

I agree with pp about making sure that you have a solid schedule before attempting any sleep training because if you don't have a solid schedule and overtiredness is possibly an issue then it simply isn't going to work.

I always wake DS up at 7 each day no matter what, even as a tiny baby and that's how we built a schedule to be sure he was getting the sleep he needed during the day which meant he wasn't over tired for bedtime. We used the pick up put down method to teach him to self settle but he was younger than your DS, at this age I think the Ferber method is a good option.

Teaching your child how to sleep is a good thing.

Lots of people here are against sleep training, however anyone who has ever done it, especially ferber will sing its praises.

Look at it this way, 20+ years ago this would not even be a question. The idea of a parent getting up 7 times a night to look after a child would be ridiculous, yet somehow society is still standing.

The kid will learn to sleep, you'll be happier and in my experience the kid will be alot happier as well. Do it.

A Dsis who was at her exhausted wits’ end did it, and it worked. Her dd is now late 30s with a PhD and was certainly not ‘damaged’ in any way.

Very stressful for a while, though.

On MN though, you will mostly be told that ever leaving a baby to cry is a heinous crime.

Ferber worked brilliantly for us, it took a week. DC need proper sleep in order to grow, develop and thrive both mentally and physically.