A couple questions.
Have you dealt with your DC being sick since doing Ferber? Did everything go back to normal once DC was better or did you have to work on things again? When did you feel that DC was "better"? I guess if they started sleeping better again you wouldnt have to decide, but if their sleeping was still messed up when did you feel comfortable to do Ferber again?
We had been doing a modified version and then I started doing the spacing out of feedings from Ferber's schedule. We were just about ready to start the more structured progressive waiting instead of our modified method. But DD started getting sick. She seemed to be doing fine until 2 nights ago. I put her in her crib after a night feeding and she coughed and started crying. I picked her up and tried again and the same thing happened. So we ended up co-sleeping. She did pretty well sleeping that night.
But last night was bad! She woke up 45 mins after I put her to bed. She hasn't woke up that soon since the first night we started sleep training. Nothing DH did worked so I fed her again and we co-slept all night. She woke up every 1.5hours and I fed her a lot since that seemed to help.
She does have a little bit of a cough at night. But its odd cause she seems fine during the day. She doesn't act sick, she's all happy and smiles. So I'm not sure if I should expect her sleep to return to pre-sickness level when she's better. Or if we're going to have to start all over again. And I'm not sure when to know when she's better for it.
Thanks!
Re: Ferber ladies
The advice given to me about this was to get up with your child whenever they need it while they are sick... but don't cosleep. The cosleeping is too much of a "regression" and will be all the more difficult to break after the illness. Plus, if you keep cosleeping, you won't ever know whether she returns to her new sleeping patterns when she's better... you will have to try to decide that for her by deciding when to stop cosleeping, rather than letting her tell you by waking less frequently to be rocked and nursed.
That said, we haven't faced this yet. My plan would be to get up and rock/nurse Seth as much as he needed during the night, even sleep in the recliner with him, but not take him into my bed where the old sleep associations are so strong.
In reality, I would probably end up cosleeping if the frequent wakings continued for more than two nights. My understanding is that if this happens, you have to re-ferberize all over again.
FWIW, DS still has a cough from his RSV. He often wakes up coughing, but he can put himself back to sleep without crying. I always go peek in the door to make sure he's okay.
Ugh! Well, I wasn't sure what to do last night. She was such a mess when she woke up and would not calm down. I figured co-sleeping might be the better way to go for our sanity. DH and I are both sick with colds too so we're exhausted.
I just didn't know what to do. We really only co-sleep when there's a problem. Pre-sleep training she was a swing sleeper. So I thought that we'd be ok as long as we avoided falling back to the swing. But who knows now!
I plan to start off the night in the crib every night so we don't start off co-sleeping at least, so hopefully that helps some.
I just don't know how to judge if she's really sick or if she's just slipping back into old habits. Her 6 month appt is tomorrow so I'll be sure to discuss with her pedi and make sure she doesn't have anything bigger going on (like ear infection, etc).
I think you will be able to tell by her daytime behavior. I would definitely rule out an ear infection because our pedi told me that ears actually bother them more at night - so she could be acting fine during the day but then really in pain at night time.
See, cosleeping for us was the source of the strong sleep association - DS had been sick, so he was spending increasing amounts of time in our bed every night. Eventually, he was better, but still sleeping like crap in our bed - probably because he had no idea how to fall asleep at that point...he was nursed to sleep at 7:30, shushed to sleep with a paci in his crib at 8:30, rocked at 9:30, in bed with mommy at 11, etc. That's why I think cosleeping would be particularly iffy with us.
That said, I recently started bringing Seth back into the bed for his morning feeding. It doesn't seem to have confused him, but we'll see
Thanks! That's good to know about the ear infection, I'll definitely bring it up to her pedi tomorrow. I'll feel better if her pedi gives her a clean bill of health!