Ferber method?

[Strugglingmum2023]

Hi all. Please can those who have tried the Ferber method or any sleep training advice if it worked for them? My 6m old is contact napping during the day, does not sleep in his cot and wakes up hourly at night. He is fed to sleep at night and practically is on the boob all night. Please before judging I just want to hear people’s experience with sleep training. I am not sure if I will do it, I just want to see if anyone else has been in my position and or has any good experiences with this. My DS does not sleep in the cot during the day, mostly in my bed at night, does not sleep in the pushchair, or like the pushchair, does not sleep or like the car seat. I do not go anywhere, I am a first time mum and really starting to struggle.

Thank you.

Watching this thread as I'm in the same boat. Second child and she never naps more than 30 mins anywhere, nights were great but have gone to shit after a cold last week.
I've been trying to shhh pat in the cot but she's having none of it. I think I'll progress to Ferber this week.
She's 6mo on Friday and the older they get the harder it is.

With my eldest I got him shush patting in the cot with a comforter to chew then after a couple of weeks of that I did Ferber but it wasn't bad, just a few cuddles and he went off to sleep on his own. This madam is not so keen!

How are you getting on @MooMaa83 , any joy with getting her to self settle again? Let us know how you go if you start Ferber. I’ve been letting her fuss in the cot and going in if I feel it’s transitioned from grizzling to being upset, with mixed results, so am going to wait a bit longer…

@Geranium1984 My DD naps well and has terrible nights, but other than that our kids sound very similar! Mine won’t have a bar of being shush patted in the cot either, whereas my DS was okay with it. Let us know how you go too!

@k80pie yes she has been self settling 75% of the time I would say. I think she mainly struggles to do this when she is over tired. Still waking up loads at night though, so I'm at a bit of a loss, as assumed once she could self settle the night wakings would reduce! I'm giving it a bit more time too. I'm a bit reluctant to do Ferber at overnight wakes (I'm exhausted and don't want to wake up the whole house), but maybe that's the next step. The book should be arriving anyday so I plan to read that. Your approach re fussing in the cot sounds very much like mine and I'm sure that has helped with the self settling. The only other change for us is that I've introduced a third meal of the day (lunch), so I'm wondering if that will help. I've also started to keep a nap/sleep and food diary, just to keep track of any patterns. I'm sure we'll all get there!

An update from me, I left her to self settle for nap 1 and 2 on Tues, going in when she'd been crying for a couple of mins.
First nap took about 20mins for her to go to sleep with three cuddles.
Second was maybe 15mins with two cuddles. She only napped 30mins and multiple wakes Tues night.

Today (Wed) she settled easily for both naps 1 and 2. No need for cuddles, was just low level whinging but largely quiet. Again, only slept 30 mins 🤦‍♀️ let's see what tonight brings.

I do think she's quite hungry in the night, she's certainly feeding more during the day this week.

@MooMaa83 Yeah I’m sure we’ll all get there too! :) It’s just so hard when the sleep dep sets in and the bad days become more frequent, it definitely makes me more desperate to ‘do something’. Mine is waking loads at night too, and yeah I don’t want to wake the whole house up either so I try and get her back to sleep asap - but she has these long awake periods at least once a night now, I have to work so hard to get her back to sleep (full feed, rocking, pacing room), for an hour or more - there’s no way in hell she would be patted in the cot. And if I just put her in the cot (like last night) she just rolls around occasionally squawking for ages until finally shouting and I have to get back up and settle her again. Ughh! It’s so grim. Trying to not get down about it but it’s so hard when it’s been over six months and you are just so worn down and depleted by now!!
Also mine is teething and has had two teeth pop up in the last fortnight, and is doing weird stuff like very brief nursing strikes, so I don’t think it’s right for me to Ferber just yet. Also mine is not established on solids yet like yours, she is just mucking around with a few tastes of purée and even got upset when I offered her a chunk of lamb the other day! She was so mad at that lamb lol. Wouldn’t it just be a dream if they just started doing lovely long stints all of a sudden…

@Geranium1984 That’s really good! How did last night go, and day three of naps? Mine seems hungry too overnight. My DP has been settling her for her wakeups for the first part of the night for as long as he can so I can sleep, but I do wonder if she’s hungry at 10pm and we are just delaying the inevitable…
Does yours go back to sleep easily at night wakeups, or is she wide awake for periods? I wonder if mine is actually napping too much! How many 30min naps does yours do in the day?

@k80pie I'll pm you details of a sleep consultant...I had a 30min free phone consultation and she had some useful advice around naps. I would say if you email her your DD routine in advance, then you would get the most out of the 30min call as a lot of the time was going through routine. Some positive signs last night...DD woke for a feed at 11.30, 2.30...then woke at 4 and 6 but settled herself back to sleep those times. Woke for the day at 7.30! I'm not counting my chickens before they sleep though!

My daughter was the same. Contact naps only - for the first 4 months she would only sleep in the carrier with me walking outisde. I was averaging 20,000 steps a day and everyone said ‘well done for getting out!’ And I just cried and cried from exhaustion and blisters. Then we managed to get her to sleep in the house by rocking her but she would still only sleep on us.

Around 5 months we had an online appointment with a sleep consultant who recommended us the pick up put down method - we did it with minimal picking up as found that made it worse most of the time. It was 3 weeks of hell to be honest, I drank every night and dreaded nap and bed times. But it worked.

She started crying for a bit less time over the weeks - to start with it was 15 mins screaming then got slowly less. I would lie next to her sometimes with a hand on her chest and over time edged away further until eventually she learned to self soothe.

After about 3 weeks it was MUCH better. She is now a great sleeper, I can put her down awake with a kiss and say goodnight and she goes to sleep on her own, no crying, within 5-15 mins.

It can be quite an awful process (sorry, this is not meant to scare but to warn you to get the wine in and make sure you share the load with partner) but was 100% worth it in the end.

Hi all, how is everyone doing?
This weekend we've done 3 nap days instead of 4 🥳

I can't remember how many days it's been but she's largely settling herself for both naps. Goes down easily for the first and a bit more protest for the second, although she's just fallen asleep now with just low level intermittent moaning.
Still not really linking sleep cycles. She did an hour for one of the lunch naps, but the good news is that I've been able to extend the nap the majority of the time.

Nights have become a bit better but stilp not great. she's waking around midnight then 4am ish for big feeds. Though after that she will do up to half hour stints in the cot, just wants to be on me and feeding non stop in the early morning - my son was the same, not sure what to do. I think she might be a bit uncomfortable with wind or whatever from big feeds in the night, often farms and squirms and wants to suck.

Ugh now I've just written all this she's just woken up after half hr lunch nap and I've not been able to get her back to sleep. Now we're between needing 3 - 4 naps 🙈

You will know the methods that are likely to work for your DC. I have one DC who was sleep trained with Ferber in 5 days. He took 40 mins to go to sleep on the first night and got significantly better each night. Only 1 night waking on the first night and we did Ferber again in the night.
other DC was a different story. Nothing, and I mean nothing, worked for him. He was a nightmare sleeper and still is. Screamed whenever was put down in the cot or anywhere for that matter and would not settle. Cried for so long when doing Ferber that we gave up after 2 weeks of being really strong about it. Still woke every couple of hours all night. Going in to him during Ferber would make it worse. Gentle methods, pick up and pick down etc had no chance of working. You need to judge each child individually and work out what’s best for them

@Geranium1984 that sounds like a step in the right direction! Hopefully as naps start to lengthen the nights will improve. Great that she's self settling. Up until about 3/4 days ago things were improving for us....mostly self settling, lovely long naps (3, sometimes 2 a day), nights still a challenge but some longer 3-4 hour stretches. However things went to pot about 3/4 days ago and today I have noticed her first tooth is popping through! So she is dosed up with calpol tonight and hopefully now the tooth is through things will start to improve again. Fingers crossed for both of us!

@MooMaa83 this sounds pretty good, especially the naps!!
Ugh teething is the worst, my DD has been teething for months with no signs of actual teething yet. Hopefully the calpol helps tonight and it's all over quickly.

Can I ask for the details of your sleep consultant, please? I think of things don't improve in the next week then I'll get one involved. As I don't know what to do.

So glad I found this thread. Been contemplating Ferber for about a week. DD has just turned 6 months and we have bed shared since 4 months. Hates her cot and will nap in day but only pram/contact/car seat. I have genuine anxiety about starting but I keep telling myself - she won’t remember crying and hold it against me and getting yourself to sleep is a skill. You can tell I’ve been taking myself in/out of this all week. We are moving house shortly so thinking new routine might coincide well with her new “big girl” room. God - it’s tough isn’t it.

Those you say it’s worked well - how extreme were your DD/DS sleeping prior? Currently DD bf’s to sleep and hates any form of comfort - dummy/blanket/soft toy/shh-ing/any form of comfort from me whilst she’s in her cot.

@wishIwasonaBeach We are in almost exactly the same position! Planning to move DD into her own room any day now. I have a phone chat with a sleep consultant booked tomorrow morning cause I think I need some support to do Ferber - though tonight DD actually ended up self settling without too much crying! A miracle! As I’ve been dreading sleep training because she will absolutely not be comforted in the cot. Let’s see if it helps the sleep overnight? Will update…

@k80pie Let’s cheer each other on 👏We have a moving date next Friday 19th so now I can’t keep putting off sleep training 😂

@wishIwasonaBeach @k80pie I’m on day 6 of Ferber (we did 2,4,6,8,10 minute intervals) and it’s working so brilliantly. DS has just turned 6 months and was up every 30-45 mins in the night wanting to be fed and no amount of rocking/cuddling would settle him. He wouldn’t settle with Co-sleeping either. He’s managed to do a 7-6 stretch last night and has cried faaaaar less doing CC across 5 days combined in comparison to the average night before sleep training. We did night time first and then naps after the first two days and he’s now self settling for bed and two naps in the cot. I’ll be cheering you on!! Best of luck! Xxx

Oh wow!! 🤩 Well done you. You’ve done an amazing job. Thank you for the encouragement. I will make sure I let you know x

How is everyone getting on?
We seemed to have gone backwards. She was settling quite well for first nap and taking longer for second but now after about 2 weeks she's really fighting both.
I think she might be in a big leap, keeps flipping over to her tummy and not liking it. Almost trying to crawl during her play time.
😩😩😩

@Geranium1984 backwards here too I'm afraid....but I think teething may be to blame. I'm hoping things will settle down. We're back to multiple night wakings and DD struggling to settle back down after a feed. I'm beyond shattered and avoiding driving as I feel so unsafe....which really limits us getting out and about which is rubbish. Naps not too bad, but definitely more resistance than before. Sorry to hear things not going too well with you. I remember my first DD was kept awake by flipping on her tummy and not being able to get back. Hopefully it wont be long before she learns to roll from tummy to back! I have a sleep consultant on standby....but I don't want to do any sleep training while DD may be in pain with teething. I'm going to re evaluate when things have settled (if they ever do!). Hang in there!

Hi both - no change here either. Still in my bed tucked under my left arm as we speak. Moving house this Friday so then the countdown will be on as I don’t want her in our bed for long. Need that first week to get my blackout blinds sorted etc. Still full of anxiety about getting started 😑

@poppet131 That’s amazing poppet! Thanks for letting us know - good inspo for sure! I hope things are still going well for you!

@Geranium1984 @MooMaa83 @wishIwasonaBeach So moving to her own room has not improved things, if anything it’s made it harder having to go down the hall, and stressing about whether she’ll wake up her brother (he doesn’t!) She’s been off the hook because she got an immunisation yesterday, but also because she’s having such a slow start to solids still and I don’t want to start sleep training before she’s well established on them (so I can be sure she’s not hungry). She’s still waking for two or three feeds a night. The sleep consultant I talked to advised changing her nap routine to be a short morning nap (capped at 30mins) and then a longer lunch nap - I’m not sure how I feel about waking her to cap naps, or making her last all afternoon til bedtime (she resists late afternoon bandaid naps). So not sure whether to go with the sleep consultant or not.

Do you guys have other kids? What do you plan to do with them when you do Ferber? I am wondering if I need to send him for a night at his nana’s that night…

@kk80pie re. The long lunch nap, I was also given this advice with my ds1 (now 2yo), it never really worked for us though. They have so much more sleep pressure in the mornings so once he started self settling and linking his cycles the morning nap was always more reliable. I'd let him do 1.5hr and then whatever happened at lunch happened. I never got him self settling for the third nap. That dissappears soon enough anyway. Once we were on 2 naps I was able to start cutting the first one down and the lunch one finally got longer.

I'm not doing controlled crying at night, I'm still 'happy' to feed her, she's definitely hungry. We had a 5 hour stretch of sleep last night so I think self settling for the naps must have done some good?? I will do ferber for the start of the night soon, but am conscious my sons room is directly above the baby 🤦‍♀️

DD is still instantly flipping on her tummy and getting upset when I put her in the cot. We were doing so well 😭

Watching as well, am also in the same boat 🫠

8mo is fed to sleep and still wakes often through the night, sometimes every 45 minutes. Would never go in her cot (woke as soon as put in) so we cosleep. I usually have to feed her back to sleep each time but sometimes she'll accept just being picked up. During the day she feeds to sleep & contact naps, or will sleep in the car or pram if moving.

I have tried putting her in her cot awake but she just goes mad - fully screaming and flailing about, rolling onto her side and just grabbing the cot bars. No patting or shushing will calm her, I have to pick her up. If I put her back in once she's calm she just starts again.

Just feel completely trapped.

@GlitteryGreen that sounds so tough. We were where you are. Don't give up hope... you can improve things with sleep training. I think it just depends what style you think would better suit your baby and yourself. With out DD (7.5 months) from just before 6 months we did a combination of pick up put down, and leaving her to cry for a few mins in between. As long as you're consistent it will work. I think we're just beginning to see some benefits now. She mostly self settles, and wakes usually 2 or 3 times and I feed her back to sleep within 5-10mins. I recommend Your Sleepless Baby by Rowena Bennet. Also...I haven't tried it myself but you can get something called a Rockit, which keeps a pram moving when stationary.....is this an option for naps so you can have a breather? Hang on in there!

Thanks @MooMaa83 . Luckily she does feed back to sleep really quickly, just some nights it's very frequent.

I think sleeping in our bed means she's disturbed more but I just can't get her in that cot for love nor money - well, without hysterics anyway. I have got to a stage where I can put her down asleep on the sofa now, so that's an improvement from where we were as at least I'm free to move around.

I actually got the rockit cot version to see if it helped...no luck 🤣 Have often considered the pram one though but ours lives in the car so it would only help when out and about. Which would still be good tbf!

Feeling for you @GlitteryGreen ! That trapped feeling is tough, especially after 8 months.

If you’re having a bit of success getting her down asleep onto the sofa, can you start trying with the cot? I feed mine in a chair right next to the cot so I only have a few steps to take. I try to get her down pretty quickly after she’s asleep, so she doesn’t wake and think she’s had her nap already. I was really persistent about getting her down in the cot, and eventually she would just stay asleep because she was so tired and ready to sleep. And I got really quick/subtle at extracting my arms from under her from sheer practice. Oh man, that pit in your stomach when they wake up, I really get it - it’s always when you’re really desperate for the bathroom or looking forward to that hot cup of tea! I have cried from that frustration before!

Even though for a while she’d wake after her nap crying, she started to wake in her cot and just lie there and get used to being in it. (She’s still not able to self settle in it much yet though, hence being on this thread!) But at least getting her down asleep in there consistently has meant she’s used to being in it. It would give you that freedom you need to get things done! I know all babies are different though and how hard it is when they just constantly wake when being put down. The other thing I have had for both my DC is a comfort blanket - she grabs that when she wakes in the cot now - it took a couple of weeks of her ignoring it/not knowing what to do with it before she started to seek it out. Do you have something like that?