Tell me your Ferber success story!

wellfleet04

I was very anti-CIO with my DD.  But that was easy to be, because she slept like a dream from 4 months on.  My DS, not so much.  He slept wonderfully as a newborn, but ever since 4 months he's gotten worse and worse.  He's now up at least 3, usually 4-5, times a night screaming.  He will ONLY go to sleep after nursing. He doesn't eat, just sucks for a few minutes and then can settle right down.  He goes down just fine for bedtime, drowsy but awake after his last feeding, but his nightwaking is KILLING ME.  I am tired, crabby, and becoming angry at him, which isn't fair.

So....after reading Ferber's book, I think it's pretty clear that he has a sleep association with sucking that needs to be broken.  It all makes sense to me, and he seems like a "textbook" case.  He's nearly 6 months old.  But....somehow I am still scared/uncomfortable.  So, if you did Ferber (meaning you did the periodic check ins, not just CIO), tell me your success story!  How many nights did it take?  What was the longest your DC cried?  Thanks

Baby4OT

My first DD was opposite your son. Once I got her to sleep in the crib, she'd sleep fine, but getting her to sleep was becoming a nightmare. Starting when she was aroudn 8 or 9 months old, it would take me 1-2 hours to get her into the crib each time (3x a day - 2 naps and bedtime). I felt like all I did all day was try to get her to sleep. She'd nurse to sleep, but as soon as she came unlatched or was put in her crib she'd wake up screaming, I'd let her latch on, she'd immediately go to sleep, I'd try putting her down. Repeat. I tried using Ferber, but me going in to comfort her periodically only made her escalate her crying. I ended up just letting her cry, which killed me. But I'd tried every no-cry technique I'd read about. And I'd read a lot! It took her three nights, with less crying each night. The 3rd night I think she only cried a few minutes. Oh, and I switched her bedtime routine so that instead of reading books and then BFing, she nursed and then we read books.

 Now DD2 is 6 months old and I'm having major problems again. This time I can't seem to put her down at all for naps. At bedtime I nurse her and hold her for a while after she unlatches and she goes down OK. Naps are awful unless I hold her, which isn't that great with an almost 3 year old running around. I'd debating doing Ferber again and also not letting her nurse at bedtime again.

co18co

We did it @ 7.5 months old.  Benjamin was waking up 6, 7, plus times per night, and I was being lazy (out of exhaustion) and just nursing him back to sleep.  

B went from getting up multiple times per night, to just ONCE (to eat) after one {painful} night of Ferber.  It took, wait for it, 28 minutes.  DH did the hard part, but short of being sick, he never got up more than once, ever again.

His naps got better at that point, too.  He didn't actually sleep through (he kept that one feeding) until 16 months old, but I attribute that to the chronic ear infections that he had (had tubes at 14 months).

Ferber saved my sanity.

JOEBunny

5 days now with Ferber.  DS is waking up even more.  He was up at 1,2,4,6 and 7.  he slept from 9 -1 without waking.  I am considering doing straight cry it out, since this does not seem to be working so well. 

Amanda&Chris

I did Ferber with DD and it was definitely a success!  I had been doing Baby Whisperer since 3 months so she was already on a routine and napping pretty well, but was waking up multiple times per night. 

I figured out it was that I was putting her to bed too early and she was waking up during the night and just laying there awake.  What I thought was multiple wakings was one waking with the paci falling out a few times.  So, I did more than one thing in the Ferber book, I adjusted her bedtime later and also did Ferber CIO to break the paci association.

I had tried the BW method of giving her the paci to suck, waiting until she was almost asleep and taking it away which didn't work.  That's how I figured out she had just been laying there with the paci, not sleeping.

It took 2 days of Ferber and no more than 30ish minutes of crying.  And she has been an excellent sleeper ever since.  Once she was STTN I was able to adjust her bedtime earlier so that she was back to going to bed at 7.

Andrewsgal

I did it with both my kids at 9 months. It worked great for each. I honestly don't remember how long they cried, it was not long though. I am so glad we did it. They are both amazing sleepers. I really do think that we have no bedtime sleep issues with DD like a lot of my friends do beacuse we have always been consistant about bedtimes and night wakings starting with Ferber.

ebb7

Hi Wellfleet! I loves me some Ferber, let me tell you! We didn't do it until Hayden was 10 months and at that point was up literally every 20 minutes ALL.NIGHT.LONG. She honestly cried less with Ferber than she did every night. The first night she cried for maybe 30 minutes. The next night it was close to 10 minutes and the third night she slept through the night. I couldn't believe it. We had created a monster that needed to be rocked to sleep and Ferber "cured" her in 3 nights.