Ferber method for a nearly 1 year old!

[Ell16]

A bit of background;

My daughter is 2.5y and has always had a great routine (up until lately) from around 3 months old she slept through the night and on the occasion that she would wake up, it was a quick cuddle, check of the nappy and back to sleep. Her day time naps were like clockwork; an hour 10-11am then 2-3pm.

My son was born when my my daughter was 18m. He has never, and I mean NEVER, slept for a longer period than two hours consecutively day or night. At the time my son arrived, my daughter dropped both naps at her own will and is now also super unsettled through the night (probably because she’s over tired, but she’s strong willed and point blank refuses to take the rest she clearly needs)

My son is still breastfed which I plan on stopping. He took well to weaning in terms of solids and will take a bottle of formula if he’s got no other choice. We’re yet to transition to cows milk, but will tackle this over the coming weeks.

Bedtime routine;
Dinner 5pm
Bath 6pm
Bedtime story 6.45
Bed 7pm

Initially this worked well. I would breastfeed my son to sleep and be out the room within 20/30mins whilst my partner puts our little girl to bed. Now, I am taking him to bed, feeding as normal and he isn’t going down. Sometimes I stay in the room for over an hour before I crack and take him back to the living room so he doesn’t wake my daughter.

When he finally goes to sleep, sometimes 9pm, he will go in his cot for an hour, maybe two if we are lucky and cries until I pick him up and feed him again, I know this is for comfort but I’m exhausted and I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how many more sleepless nights I can take. I’d say me and my partner are lucky to get 3.5/4 hours a night which is insane! We’ve tried co sleeping and that didn’t make a difference, if anything I think it made the wake ups worse.

My plan is to stop breastfeeding all together in hopes that my son stops associating feeding with comfort & introduce the Ferber method to tackle the inevitable crying that is going to come with it. Has anyone found this method successful? Any tips? Words of wisdom? Am I doing the right thing?! I just want us all to sleep better and improve our quality of life by not feeling exhausted all the time!

The GroClock has helped with my daughters wake ups but I need to find a solution to my sons unsettled sleeping habits…

What's his nap schedule?

I'd start with pat shush to sleep rather than feeding to sleep and then transition to him falling asleep on his own, max 5/6 minutes of whinge crying rather than full on sobbing. Full ferber never worked on my really bad sleeper....

@Wnikat

What's his nap schedule?

I'd start with pat shush to sleep rather than feeding to sleep and then transition to him falling asleep on his own, max 5/6 minutes of whinge crying rather than full on sobbing. Full ferber never worked on my really bad sleeper....

He doesn’t have a schedule as such, we’ve really struggled to find a solid routine. He started nursery last week (3 mornings a week, the same as his sister) so I’m hoping this will be a positive step and a routine will form around this. I return to work on the 21st of this month; so I think for our sanity and wellbeing we need to improve his sleep, else im going to be tired at work and he isn’t going to thrive as much as he could at nursery if he’s as tired as we are from sleepless nights. I’m not saying I want him sleeping through the night and I’m not trying to force that upon him (although that would be great as a longer term goal). The Ferber method really is a last resort… I’m nervous about it but I’ve got to give it a go

He cat naps in the day, half an hour in the morning and maybe the same in the afternoon. Fed to sleep, rarely will he doze off by him self.

We tried the Ferber method tonight, it took about 2 hours but the second hour was him falling asleep sat upright and would wake himself nodding his head - in the end, I went in and lay him down and didn’t leave the room until he settled properly in a comfy position (this took around 10 mins of sitting on the floor next him)

Hopefully tomorrow things improve slightly…

I'm no expert but I think you're doing the right thing!
my DD used to be boobed to sleep really easily then that stopped working... tried a few things but eventually ended up on ferber at 10.5 months, and it took 2 nights. That was a month ago and she's been up between 7:30pm and 6:30am less than 5 times in total since!

That’s really reassuring, thank you! How did the first two nights go for you?
Last night, little one woke at 12.30 then 3.30, I think the settling/getting back to sleep took 30mins each time so a huge great improvement on what we’ve been contending with lately! He woke for the day at 6.35. And was very calm this morning when we got ready for nursery, I’m hoping it’s the start of some good quality sleep!

The first night we did the bedtime routine etc, put her down (she immediately started screaming) said "night night darling" and left. I think we started with 3 minutes, then 5, 7, 7, 7, .... too 49 mins total and by the end she kept plonking face down, going quiet, then sitting up and crying again. Until eventually she stayed down. Slept 11 hours straight, but we weren't sure if it was just a fluke as she was exhausted from all the screaming.

The second night was similar but not as intense, took 29 mins, about half of which was the stop/start plonking down/sitting up again. Slept a couple of hours and woke up and screamed again, then we did it again for 20 mins and she went back to sleep for the rest of the night.

Third night we put her down, she moaned for 30 seconds, turned onto her front and went to sleep!

Now we just put her down, say goodnight and leave the room. Sometimes she cries a bit (less than 10 mins), sometimes she's asleep before we've even left the room!

She is getting up quite early though atm... this morning half 6 :S But it's SOOOO much better than what it was!

This sounds exactly like my first and 2nd children. I stopped breast feeding at 12 months - just gave a drink of water instead for a couple of nights, then stopped this. I did two nights of ferber then bought some ear plugs.
I realised that I had been rushing in to comfort her at any small sound because I didn't want her to wake her sister. She still makes a bit of noise as she moves between sleep cycles - often crying out once or twice, but isn't really awake (hence the ear plugs).

Yes. GP recommended it as was suicidal, I thought PND he thought sleep deprivation.

Took 5 nights total, we also had to stop co sleeping and breastfeeding at the same time.

It was v v tough, he was waking many times during the night and we were going in every 5/10 mins ad infinitum, by day 4 we were both ill with how little we'd slept. He 'got' it that night, and then went down and settled in the night fine.

He was 2 when we did it, I wish we'd done it much earlier.