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D.C. Area Babies
kafunder
member
Ferber questions--please help
kafunder
member
Since the LOs were sick in January, they're sleep has fallen to pieces. So, we're Ferber-ing the next few days. I'm reading the book right now, but I have a few questions for those of you who have done it.
1. DD has started to roll from back to belly, but she hasn't figured out belly to back. She rolls ALL.NIGHT.LONG and screams when she realizes she's on her belly. Last night, she did this continuously from 1am-4am. Any advice on how to help her? I assume we can't Ferber her until she's figured out the rolling.
2. What do you do if the babies keep waking up 60-90 minutes before wake up time. Do you still Ferber them then?
3. I feel bad letting them CIO if they mght be hungry. Should we feed them the first time they wake up (usually around 1am--with last bottle being at 6:30pm), and then hope they STTN after that? Or, is it okay to assume they aren't hungry? They are both good size babies and eat well during the day, including two meals of solids.
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Re: Ferber questions--please help
According to my pedi, exclusively breastfed babies may need to wake up and eat upto 9-10mo of age. So yes, they may still be hungry. I would not let them CIO at 1am, 6:30-1am is a long time for a 5mo old! Even if they are on formula, they may just need to eat still.
The goal of Ferber is to teach your babies to fall asleep on their own, at night and also, when they wake up in the middle of the night. We all wake up many times at night, but we know how to fall back asleep. Babies need to learn that skill.
What is your wake-up time? A lot of babies wake up before 6am, they are just up for the day. I have not figured out a way to make a baby/toddler sleep later in the morning.
When we Ferberized DD, we did it at 9.5mo and I feel like she really got it. DH did it (b/c I was the one who nursed her to sleep). We picked a time when there was nothing going on - no teething, learning new skills, vacations, etc etc. So yes, I would wait until both babies are not going to need to wake up for other reasons (sickness, teething, etc). We did it by the book, 5mins, go in, say "shhh," come back after 7 mins, then 10, then 15, etc etc. We did this at bedtime only. Eventually she learned to fall back asleep on her own when waking up in the middle of the night, too. By that age, I knew she no lnoger needed to eat in the middle of the night and she eventually started STTN, 1st it was just 1-2 times a week, then slowly and slowly more days STTN than not.
good luck, it's a hard stage
1. DD has started to roll from back to belly, but she hasn't figured out belly to back. She rolls ALL.NIGHT.LONG and screams when she realizes she's on her belly. Last night, she did this continuously from 1am-4am. Any advice on how to help her? I assume we can't Ferber her until she's figured out the rolling. It will probably take a week until she figures out how to roll herself back. It's your call whether or not to Ferber during this time.
2. What do you do if the babies keep waking up 60-90 minutes before wake up time. Do you still Ferber them then? Is this "wake up" time 6 am for example? This is one area I had trouble with - we got STTN, but it only lasted until 5 am. I was OK with this so I didn't push it till he was closer to a year old. Hopefully others can weigh in.
3. I feel bad letting them CIO if they mght be hungry. Should we feed them the first time they wake up (usually around 1am--with last bottle being at 6:30pm), and then hope they STTN after that? Or, is it okay to assume they aren't hungry? They are both good size babies and eat well during the day, including two meals of solids. It's OK not to offer food as part of sleep training. I was especially worried about this since DS didn't eat a lot, but he caught on and upped his food intake during the day.
I hope I don't sound like a Ferber shrew, but the strategies really worked for our family and it was a short-term tough period before we were all getting more sleep and happier for it.
Ditto both pp's on some points! We did Ferber around 6 months for going to sleep...but did still do one nighttime feeding, around 2am. I also have a baby who does not sleep late at all, and will never be one of those "sleep 12 hours" babies...he is up between 5:30 and 6 everyday, earlier sometimes. Ferber says you can adjust their schedule to your window of time, but DS didn't work well with that. We've tried lots of things, and are just going with it for now.
Once you have the "going to sleep by yourself" part down, the rest may fall into place. That made a major difference for us with nighttime wakings - that's why I wasn't upset about the once a night at all.
As far as the rolling over part, I would probably wait until they have that down, if that is part of what is waking them up...but understand you might not want to wait that long!
Oh, and we did the "chicken" version of Ferber...I totally started with 1/3/5 minute intervals...you can go with any times that feel right to you, as long as they are growing intervals.
Good Luck! It really made a HUGE difference in our lives! We had to re-do it after DS's RSV, but it all got back on track!