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February 2014 Moms
sdlaura
member
Personal Sleep Training Experience (tl;dr)
sdlaura
member
From past discussions, I know that most of the ladies on this board are anti-sleep training, and I'm not trying to convince anyone to do it, but given that I have one of the older babies on the board, I thought that others might find my experience with sleep training to be interesting and/or helpful.
Around the time that DS turned 6 months old a couple weeks ago, I started sleep training using the Ferber method. DD didn't require any sleep training, so I know how much better parenting is for me when I'm adequately rested. DS had always woken up frequently, and required eating, rocking, bouncing, etc., sometimes for hours in the middle of the night, to go back to sleep. It wasn't improving as we got closer to 6 months. I decided to try sleep training because lack of sleep was negatively impacting a lot of areas of my life - I had less patience for my kids and enjoyed them less because I was always exhausted, my relationship with DH was weaker because I went to bed immediately after the kids did rather than having any time with him, I worried about falling asleep while driving and having an accident, and at work I could never find the right word I needed while speaking, and left work early to nap. I wanted to do sleep training the "right" way, so I read a couple books and decided on Ferber. If anyone is considering sleep training I'd recommend reading his book ("Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems"), because it made a lot of sense to me, and I liked having a very specific program and answers to my questions about it. I also had read an article about this study when it came out, and it reinforced my decision for me:
The first night I put DS down a little after his bedtime (as recommended in the book, so he's more tired), and he cried/fussed for the first 3 mintues, then I checked in, then for another 5 minutes, then I checked in, and he fell asleep during the next phase (which is 10 minutes). He slept for about 5 hours, woke up and ate and went right back to sleep, with no rocking required. He woke up again a few hours later and ate, and then we had to go through the crying/check in cycles again. During the crying cycles, it definitely wasn't easy, but he wasn't screaming the whole time - a lot of it was really just fussing. Dr. Ferber makes it very clear that you shouldn't sleep train unless you know you can commit to it, because if you go in an pick up the baby and rock him to sleep after he cries for 20 minutes (with check-ins), then you are teaching him that he needs to cry for 20 minutes before you'll come get him.
The next night, he put himself to sleep almost immediately on his own, and in the past two weeks we've only had three other instances where I had to go through the checking in cycles again. Now he is consistently only waking up once per night - last night he slept from 8 pm until 7 am with only one 20-minute wake-up to eat, and he put himself to sleep again after that with no issue. I was actually shocked how quickly it worked. He seems happier and more content now that he's better rested, and he wakes up happy rather than frantic that I'm not there.
Anyway, like I said, I don't intend to convince anyone to sleep train - I know that everyone needs to do what's right for you and your family - but I just wanted to share my experience in case it is helpful to anyone 
BFP #1 9/2010 (lost our baby at 21 weeks)
BFP #2 8/2011 (ectopic pregnancy)
BFP #3 10/2011 (chemical pregnancy)
BFP #4 12/2011 (Abigail born 8/15/12)
BFP #5 5/2013 (Griffin born 1/23/14 with heart defects, now repaired!)
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Personal Sleep Training Experience (tl;dr)
We used the Ferber method when DS1 was about 8 months old for the same reasons you did. It was what worked for my family and he's still a great sleeper to this day. His bed is "his space" and he'll even go there if he just needs to regroup.
Thank you for sharing this, I have been contemplating trying different things to help my LO sleep. He is up 3+ times a night to eat and always goes back to sleep no problem, but thats because he is in the pack n play next to my bed. If he naps in his crib in his room throughout the day, he wakes up constantly and very frantic. Not sure if this is the route we will end up going with, but its nice to see you've had good results from it
Baby Girl #2 is on her way!
It was getting unhealthy for her with her lack of naps, and my frustration was through the roof trying to rock her to sleep for an hour (no exaggeration) to have her wake up the second I tried to put her down.
@mamosey feel free to pm me if you need some help or advice when you start!
It hasn't been easy for us, hardest thing I've ever done...but we are both much happier when she can put herself to sleep! It's also made car rides and walks 100x better and she doesn't cry the whole time anymore...just falls asleep when she's tired!
Rocking is still fine, according to Ferber. So is feeding to sleep. Those things are only an issue if the baby can't transition between sleep cycles later at night and has to recreate the exact situation surrounding going to sleep every time he or she wakes up. Even then, I think you could go back to rocking once you help baby figure out that he doesn't need it every time he tries to go to sleep. We fed/rocked DD to sleep every night and it wasn't an issue because she was able to sleep well and transition between sleep cycles anyway.
By the way, thank you everyone for your responses. I breathed a huge sigh of relief that this post was taken as I intended it and no one told me I was a negligent or selfish parent
Baby Girl #2 is on her way!
Our decision ultimately centered around the fact that we were completely unable to get him to nap in his crib anymore. Every time I rocked him to sleep, the second I tried to transition him to the crib he would shoot wide awake. If I put him down drowsy, he wouldn't put himself to sleep (would play and then ultimately cry). We are very happy with our decision - we have a happier, better rested baby!
We keep hoping R changes his ways on his own but going on 6 months things aren't looking good. I'm impressed with the fact that my wife and I ( like so many of you) have been " functioning" on little to no sleep for so long. When I think about how bad nights consistently are I cry.