Sleep Training - Week One almost complete! I ♥ Dr. Ferber!

As some of you may know, Morgan has never slept well. Only a few times in her life did she sleep 5+ hours straight. Her typical routine is to go to bed and wake up just about every sleep cycle. I was in her room every 45 minutes to an hour, most nights. Sometimes she'd sleep 2-3 hours at a time and give me a little break. Ever since she was a newborn, I've been reading books on baby sleep and doing research on the web. I've read the following 3 books: The Baby Whisperer (BW) by Tracy Hogg, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems (SYCSP) by Dr. Richard Ferber, and The No-Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS) by Elizabeth Pantley. They are all good books, by respected authors. I believe the first book I read was the BW and I find it more helpful now, than I did when she was a small baby. I just couldn't seem to get into a structured routine, while at the same time trying to figure out what to do with a baby. The next book I got was the Ferber book and it is the best of the 3, when it comes to explaining the nature of baby sleep. He is a baby sleep expert and I found the information very helpful. Baby's just don't sleep like adults do, and I had a lot of learning to do on the subject. I was initially very wary of letting Morgan cry for any period of time, though, so I went out and bought the NCSS. I felt that the author was on a bit of a "high horse" about how her method did not involve crying, like that meant it was superior. The NCSS is different, not better. The BW and Ferber methods are also different, and not better/worse. I believe I went out and bought 3 tools and one ended up being right for the job at hand and the others were valid tools, but for someone else's workshop.

Let me provide a little more background before I get into recounting our sleep training. I distinctly remember watching an episode of "Mad About You", many years ago, where they had their little baby in her crib, behind closed doors and they were letting her "cry it out". Jamie was sitting on the floor, outside the door, with Paul and crying and wanting to go to her and saying something to the effect of, "I don't want her to think that nobody's going to be there for her and that she's all alone in the world." It was a touching scene and I decided then that I'd never leave my baby alone to "cry it out". It seemed like a cruel process and I didn't think I could ever do such a thing.

When I read the Ferber book, however, I realized that his method was not at all like the "crying it out" (CIO) that I had heard about. In my mind, CIO is leaving your baby alone, locked in their room, to cry for hours until they pass out from exhaustion and accept the fact that nobody's listening or coming to help them, so they might as well just shut up and sleep. THAT's the CIO that I was very much against. Ferber's method does not involve abandoning your child so that they lose faith in the world. As a friend put it, "he does changes their habits without breaking their spirit".

Ferber's method involves putting your child to bed awake (which is the same suggestion as in most baby sleep books), so that they learn to put themselves to sleep without the use of "crutches" like eating/nursing, being rocked, patted, walked around, etc. You are to go through a loving bedtime routine, which can include a bath, book, song, etc. After you place your baby in the crib and tell them that you goodnight and that you love them, you leave. When you do this, your baby's going to cry. Crying is their only form of communication and they are going to use it to tell you that they are not pleased. I should add that before you place them in the crib, you are to do a safety check and make sure that they are fed, dry and not suffering any discomfort that would otherwise explain their crying. That way, you know that their crying is merely a protest to a change in their routine.

Morgan had become used to the following routine: pajamas and a bottle of milk. She would fall asleep drinking that bottle of milk and then I would burp her on my shoulder and she'd be asleep as I got up and placed her gently in the crib and snuck out of the room. She'd roll over and go right to sleep, without a fuss. However, 30-60 minutes later...WAH!!! She'd cry for me to come soothe her. She'd probably eat every time, but I'd make her wait a few hours between feedings. Every night, I'd have 3-4 bottles of water ready and formula in the dispenser. In total, she drank about 6-8 oz. at night. It didn't matter how little or how much I fed her during the day. I soon realized that it was habit, more than hunger, driving these frequent night wakings.

When Morgan was 4 months old, I decided to give Ferberizing a try. The standard plan is to start with a 5-minute wait time. I didn't really have a bedtime routine then, so I just placed her in the crib. I went to the other room and she went bananas! She was screaming and after the 5 minutes was up, I went in and she had turned herself all around in the crib and was pitching a major hissy fit. I went away for another 5, unable to do 10 and when I went back, she was livid. She was looking at me with this pleading look - "why are you doing this to me??" So, I picked her up out of the crib, told her I was sorry and abandoned the project. She just wasn't ready and I wasn't doing it right.

I then decided to try out the No-Cry plan. It involves mostly the same principles, but instead of leaving the baby in the crib, you pick them up each time and put them down and give them the "shush-pat", where you make a "shush" sound and pat them on the back. This is an exhausting plan, because you might have to pick them up and put them down 10-15 times before they go to sleep. I don't see how this is a "no cry" plan, though, because she cried every time I put her back down and most of the time while I was holding her, too. It actually made her more upset if I'd pick her up and put her back down. She'd get more and more upset each time, instead of being calmed. I'd end up having to feed her to sleep to stop her crying. The logs in the NCSS book even have a space for "time spent crying" or something to that effect, and it's just supposed to lessen over time. I don't think it's fair for them to call themselves a "no-cry"solution. I honestly don't think there is such a thing. A baby is not going to like you taking away their sleep crutches or changing what they are used to and they will protest and the way babies protest is to cry. It's like she wants to stick a fork in an electrical outlet and I'm telling her she can't and she's crying.

Anyway, I tried to get some help from parents who had successfully sleep-trained with a "no-cry" method, but I couldn't find anyone. I was nearing 8 months of basically no sleep and I needed to find something that worked. After reading more and more and more, I decided to try Ferber again. I spoke to other mothers who had successfully Ferberized, without rendering their babies insane. They all tweaked the method to suit their needs and I decide to go with Ferber's alternate interval plan that starts with a single minute of wait time.

My husband rigged up our camcorder, which has a night-vision setting, and placed it on the shelf near her crib and hid it behind the shelf curtains. He hooked it up to a spare flat-panel computer monitor in the other room. That way, I could see her and know that nothing was wrong and go in earlier, if she looked like she was in distress. This made a world of difference in making the process tolerable. Nobody wants to hear their baby cry, and it's even worse when you're imagining what they're doing in the other room. Is she spinning around? Is she shooting laserbeams out her eyes??

(Wow, I just realized this is a ridiculously long blog...sorry!)

We decided to start on a Friday night, so my husband could offer more support, if needed. I decided the bedtime routine would be bottle (well before bedtime), pajamas, book(s), bed. I couldn't add a bath to the routine because of her eczema. Another really helpful addition to the process was the purchase of Huggies Overnites diapers. They are the best! They keep her so dry at night, no matter how much she wets. I never have to change her at night. Even when she drank a ton of milk at night and wet and wet and wet, her skin would be smooth and dry in the morning.

So, I put her in her jammies, read her a few books and turned off the lights. I held her close for a few minutes and sang her a little song. I told her that I loved her and that it was time for "night night" and I put her in the crib. She immediately began fussing and I patted her and told her it was OK and it was time for bed. I said a few more sweet words and then I left the room. I went to the other room and started the 1-minute timer. I watched on the monitor as she cried and rolled around, wondering what the heckamazoo was going on. I sat there for the longest 60 seconds, reminding myself that she was clothed, fed and dry and was just protesting. After the minute passed, I went to her crib and patted her and told her that everything was OK. She cried harded at seeing me, but then she settled down and I left again for another minute. This extended to 3 minutes, then 5 minutes. I had put her in the crib at 7:45 p.m. By 8:25 p.m., she had settled down, found a comfortable position and was sleeping soundly. The total "fuss time" for Night 1 was 40 minutes. - and it's not like she cried for 40 continuous minutes. It was broken up by my visits. She then slept for 4 hours straight, which was a wonderous improvement over her normal routine. She woke up at 12:25 a.m. and I fed her a few ounces. Another part of the process is weaning off the night feeds, so for Night 1 she had to go 2.5 hours between feedings and she had gone above and beyond my expectations. After I fed her, she slept another 5 hours! She awoke at 5:45 a.m. and I fed her a little more and she slept until 7:30 a.m. That was another 1.5 hours, for a total night's sleep of 10.5 hours. We went to wake her up at 7:30, so I don't know how much longer she would have slept, but I didn't want to let her sleep too late and throw off the next day. She was a happy camper when my husband and I went to get her out of the crib. It was probably the most restful night she had experienced in her entire life. Morgan has always been a happy baby, despite her lack of sleep, but she was in an impossibly good mood that day.

I continued the process for the next day's naps and she fussed and wiggled for about 15 minutes, before falling asleep. Again, she didn't cry that whole time. She definitely cried for the first couple of minutes, but then she tossed and turned to find a comfy spot and then drifted off to sleep.

That night (Night 2) she only fussed for FIVE minutes and went to sleep. She caught onto the routine very quickly and I was amazed. When she was down for a nap, I waited longer than the 1-minute interval, because she was settling and I knew that if I went in there, she'd feel the need to put on a show of protest for me. With me out of the room, she was free to get settled and go off to sleep.

Nights 3-7 were as follows: (remember that fuss time does not mean continuous crying time...)

Night 3:
Bedtime fuss time: 8 minutes
Sleep Stretch #1: 3hr 40min
Sleep Stretch #2: 3hr
Sleep Stretch #3: 2hr 35min
Total Sleep: 9hr 15min

Night 4:
Bedtime fuss time: 8 minutes
Sleep Stretch #1: 4hr 35min
Sleep Stretch #2: 5hr
Sleep Stretch #3: 1hr
Total Sleep: 10hr 35min

Night 5:
Bedtime fuss time: 18 minutes
(interrupted by coughing fit...)
Sleep Stretch #1: 3hr 50min
Sleep Stretch #2: 5hr 30min
Total Sleep: 9hr 20min

Night 6:
Bedtime fuss time: 1 minute!
Sleep Stretch #1: 6hr 45min
Sleep Stretch #2: 3hr 30min
Total Sleep: 10hr 15min

Night 7:
Bedtime fuss time: 2 minutes
Sleep Stretch #1: 5hr 50min
Sleep Stretch #2: 1hr 50min
Sleep Stretch #3: 2hr
Total Sleep: 9hr 40min

Tonight is Night 8 and she's supposed to go the whole night without a feeding, so we'll see how that goes. She only fussed for 5 minutes, so she's still doing well.

I should add that she developed some seasonal allergies (sneezing, coughing, no fever) right in the middle of our sleep training, but she's still doing really well. She was coughing in her sleep and I was afraid the whole process would be derailed, but thankfully not. The only "problem" now is that she knows the wind-down process and she starts to fuss right when I turn out the light. I'm always holding her when I turn the lights off and she leans back in protest, because she knows what's coming. I know she's tired and she knows she's tired, but she just has to give me that little protesting cry before nodding off to Dreamland.

I think the Ferber Method was a success for us, this time around, and I am so very pleased. I truly believe that she cries less now, using a "cry" method, than she did when trying either no method or the "no-cry" method. If there are mothers out there not getting any sleep night after night after night, I would like to tell them that Ferber is not the Devil and your baby won't die if he/she has to cry for a few minutes. Instead they (and you) will get the rest they need and be all the better for it. I know this method doesn't work for everyone and not all babies adjust quickly, but it's a viable, humane option and not an exercise in baby torture, like some would have you believe.