The Ferbs

So, we're doing it. We're Ferberizing....Miss A has yet to sleep through the night (I think once when she was ten weeks old she slept for 10 hours straight, that would be the only time). She's almost 8 months old and this tired Mom thinks it's time!

We've gotten so used to being up in the middle of the night it's almost not a big deal anymore. It wasn't, anyway, until she decided a few weeks ago that she wanted to randomly get up for 90 minute intervals during the middle of the night and our usual tricks no longer worked. Or they did, till we had to put her in the crib and the silence would last about five minutes and she would be whining/crying again. We would quickly run in because we didn't want her to fully wake up again. This, of course, was reinforcing the whining/crying/waking up.

I started reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child which my friend S recommended and it was hitting home that our soothing techniques of picking her up, rocking her, singing to her in the middle of the night were just reinforcing her and encouraging her to continue getting up in the middle of the night.

The lure of Ferberizing aka progressive waiting/gradual extinction is that it has fairly quick results. And sure, the nights spent Ferberizing will be filled with crying and little sleep, but that's not that much different than what we are currently experiencing where she's waking up and we try to figure out which soothing method will illicit the least crying when we put her back down. So if we're going to be up for 90 minutes in the middle of the night anyway, why not work on getting rid of this little sleep problem?

Last night was the first night we did it and we kind of modified it to what we are already sort of doing. When she cried last night, we waited five minutes before going in to comfort her. We patted her back and butt, gave her the pacifier etc but just did not pick her up. We could always quiet her down and pretty much as soon as we did we scooted out. We had to do this six times before she fell asleep 75 minutes later. Better odds than our normal nights, although listening to her cry, especially towards the end, was absolutely torturous. She was pretty hysterical by the end of it and it was hard to calm her down even when I went in there. Eventually, after some back rubbing and soft singing, she got it down to a mere whimper and I could get her to take the pacifier again. After that, she was quiet but I stayed a bit long to pat her on the back and make sure she was comfortable. After that, she did whine a little bit more but by 3 minutes, she was quite. About 30 minutes after that I heard a little cry, and then nothing more till we woke her up at 620.

We are totally committed to this and are gearing up for tonight's cryfest....but it will be so worth it when she sleeps through the night! We can't even really imagine it at this point!