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Babies: 9 - 12 Months
Sleep Training Methods: Overview and Poll
so these are the sleep training methods i've heard about...i know i'm missing some, so please share:
1) CIO - self explanatory, cry it out
2) Ferber - CIO for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15 etc...
3) Sears - rock, nurse, feed, co-sleep...no crying.
4) No-Cry Sleep Solution - put down drowsy but awake (there's more to this one, but i don't know the details).
5) other??
Which Sleep Training method do you use and why?
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Re: Sleep Training Methods: Overview and Poll
I used https://www.sleeplady.com/ on my older son when he was one. It was successful with no crying. He was puker so CIO was not an option. Also Ferber is much more than CIO. His book is about 400 pages long and in his intro he states how much he dislikes the fact that he is associated with CIO. I always suggest people read it before sleep training because it gives a lot of suggestions to achieve healthy sleep without any training at all.
ETA: I want to add that sleep is also a 'milestone'. A lot of babies grow into a mature sleep pattern. It just takes them longer. I have not 'trained' my other two and they evolved into good sleepers on their own.
we started with no cry sleep solution because i wanted to avoid tears. it just didn't work for us, though, because i couldn't get ds to go into the bed drowsy. he'd always fall asleep on me then wake up scared and confused when i placed him in the crib.
we ended up trying ferber and it worked in 3 days. he never cried more than 30 minutes....and even then it was in little 5 minute spats.
We did a hybrid of Healthy Sleep Habits,Happy Child and The Baby Whisperer.
The main points we took from both if I can remember correctly: Healthy Sleep Habits is an overview of how important sleep is and how to support babies sleep needs even when they are tiny. We always tried to get him to sleep every couple of hrs as the books suggested even when he was a few weeks old. When it was time to officially "train" he encourages progressive waiting very similar to Ferber. The Baby Whisperer also allows crying but it's more bit more touchy feely IMO. She encourages the parents to go back in right away and pat the baby. You do this process over and over. We decided that 5-7 mins was as long as we were willing to allow him to cry. We would go back in pat and reassure. We would do this over and over until he went to sleep (usually 3-4 times). He's now a fantastic sleeper. Sleeps from 7-6:30. He can fall asleep on his own without nursing and can put himself back to sleep if he wakes up. I will say it took him 7 months to STTN.
We loved the hybrid plan because it worked. We just couldn't bare to hear him cry for a long time. I really think he responded well to the reassurance. We always told him how much we loved him and how we knew he could go to sleep on his own. Sounds cheesy but it worked for us.
i used Ferber, but I also read HSHHC and the No Cry Sleep Solution. i started it at 5 months, mainly for naps because he would only nap in my arms, and it works most of the time for naps. night time is a different story. basically, my only "rule" with him is he has to go 6 hours before i will feed him again, and if he wakes up before that, DH goes in to soothe him. our pedi keeps telling me that he can do 10 hours, but i don't think he can.
oh, and DH keeps telling me to stop feeding him.
We tried no cry first, but it didn't work for us. We spent almost 2 hours each night fighting with him trying to get him to sleep in his own crib.
We went with CIO (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby) and it only took one night of 40 min of crying to get our little guy to sleep in his own bed. It wasn't as awful as I thought it would be and the entire family is happier with more sleep.
I highly recommend reading a few books to see what works best for you.
We tried a few methods then I threw out all the books and just went with the only thing that gets DS to sleep... we nurse to sleep. If he doesn't fall asleep while nursing, we try putting him down anyway. If he starts crying, we pick him up and walk around his bedroom with him, bobbing him up and down (if that makes sense). He's always asleep within 10-15 minutes.
Edit - we considered CIO one time - there was no way it was going to work for us. And his naps have to be at exactly the same time every day otherwise the whole thing goes out the window.
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We're in love with the Sleepeasy Solution.
I've heard from a lot of people that it's very similar to Ferber's method, but the book itself is much more reader friendly and really gets into WHY it's so important to do what we're doing in terms of growth and development and why sleep is so important for those things. It's very encouraging and understanding of why it's so hard, physically and emotionally for the parents! It also gives solutions up to age five, so I'm sure it'll be getting a lot of use. I've recommended it to a bunch of people IRL and ALL have benefited!