Night one of Ferber method - need an answer to a question please!

[BeckyBoo16]

Hi, it’s taken me a long time to decide to use this form of sleep training for my 7 month old so no judgements please as I already feel guilty! We’ve adapted the times slightly and are adding 1 minute on each time instead of 5. We’ve been cosleeping up to this point with sidecar cot.

We put him down in the cot at 7.10, 50 minutes later and only having to go in to shush him twice he was asleep, he’s never fallen asleep on his own before he’s always been held by me or DP. I was in shock! He’s woken twice since then crying so we started again, waited 1 minute went in and settled, waited 2 mins and went in and settled.

Just wondering how long am I supposed to be in there settling him? Is it until he’s settled and quiet and then leave or do I just stay in for a couple of mins and leave regardless? As the last time I went in it took several minutes to settle him as he was very cross. It was a cross cry not an upset cry so he wasn’t picked up.

Also the cot is at the end of our bed now as DS’s bedroom is being decorated so he can’t go in there just yet. I’m worried about us disturbing him when we go to bed.

Sorry another question!!
Everytime he wakes up and cries do I go back to 1 minute and then shush him or do I pick up where we left off for example wait 3 minutes and then shush him??

Anyone??

We did this with our daughter at 6 months (she's 8 months now). We found that the check ins needed to be short, like less than 30 seconds, because us being there just fuelled it and she'd cry harder wanting to be picked up. So I saw the purpose of them as just letting her know we were there. On a couple of occasions she started to cry harder as she realised I was leaving the room, but then almost as soon as I shut the door she'd go quiet and fall asleep.

Re your second question, do you mean if he wakes up and cries during the night having settled earlier? If so, what we did was start again. So say we had to do two check ins at bedtime (we did intervals of 2, 4, 6 mins etc) - so going in at 2 minutes and then 4 minutes - if she then went to sleep but woke crying again two hours later we'd start back at 2 minutes.

The whole process took like 2-3 days though, honestly I was amazed at how little crying there actually was and how ready she was to settle herself to sleep, despite us thinking we had to rock her incessantly and feed her to sleep! Since sleep training she now lies down in her cot all chilled, starts rubbing her eyes as soon as you put her in there, and more often than not just rolls over and goes straight to sleep. I'm a huge convert to sleep training!

Try and keep them short as you can, but you do want him to be calm or he'll have a hard time falling asleep

@Starsnspikes thank you it’s good knowing it works for someone! I’ve been quite surprised by how little he’s cried tonight. He’s woken up for his usual feed which is normally this time anyway and just babbled a bit. He’s spat the dummy out and it’s fell onto the floor so had to pick that up a few times but overall he’s done okay so far! (Rest of the night might be different now I’ve fed him haha)

I think I’ll try and keep them a bit shorter then but I feel bad going into comfort him and leaving when he’s still crying. I think it’ll be different when his room is finished and we can move him into there - for me as well as him, I’m struggling to sleep myself tonight and he’s only at the end of the bed as appose to next to me!

Can I suggest you don't mess with the timings as they're designed that way for a reason. But if you want to cap the time you let DC cry then do that? Ie I capped mine at 5 min Max, I never let DC cry for more than that. 30 minutes for Ferber was too much for me (also google spaced soothing).
But I think when you go in it's for a minute, don't do longer than a minute as that will be confusing. It's a minute on purpose so they're secure knowing you're there but not too long or then they'll want you.
Once they cry, set the timer. If they stop for a bit, then reset it. This might mean it will be 10 minutes for example but there are gaps in between because they're trying to settle. Also listen to the crying, are they just grizzling or are they actually distressed.
Make sure you're consistent in your method.
Hope this makes sense. Good luck!

@BeckyBoo16 how was your
Night op? We are moving our lo soon to her own room and currently have next to me cot
Ours has a few night walkings so wondering how that's going to work when she's easy to settle by just putting an arm in her cot!
X

@BeckyBoo16

How did it go?

I'm exhausted and although hesitant to sleep train my 8 month old I'm running out of other ideas!!

Thanks everyone. I think overall he did really well! He fell asleep pretty much straight away after his bottle so I put him back down in the cot and there was a few stirs between 2-6am but I just popped the dummy back in if he couldn’t find it (I did leave it a few minutes to see if he could find it but he was like a baby bird searching for it in the dark) he settled pretty quickly, woke up about 6.30 had a feed and was chatting away!
I don’t know if tonight will be the same, I’m going to try and put him down in the cot for day naps as well today and see how that goes.

@WJK00 it’s worth a try! Me and DP have agreed to try this for 2 weeks as his room will be finished by then and if it works he’s going into his own room, if not he’ll stay in with us but we’ll carry on with the method.

@Judgyjudgy thank you. I think tonight I’ll just go in for a minute or two at most and leave even if he’s still crying. At least he’ll know I’m still there when we’re going in. We’ve agreed to let him get to 10 minutes max crying at the moment and the more he gets used to it we’re hoping to extend the time.

@Judgyjudgy should also say I did ignore the little whimpers and moans and just let him settle then, I’ve only been going in at the times intervals when it’s full blown crying. I figured I can leave the smaller cries as he’s not as distressed then.