Our Ferber Diary Part I- Who is this Ferber guy and what can he do for me?

Recently we decided that it was officially time for Kacey to start sleeping in her own room in her crib. While we didn't mind having her in our room, she had seriously outgrown her bassinet and Timmy really didn't think having her sleep in her car seat every night was the best solution (can you believe him? :-)

Well, I've always described Kacey as a great sleeper since she's been sleeping through the night since before she was 6 weeks old. She has always needed to be rocked to sleep though, either in our arms or pushed back and forth in her stroller. Sometimes this process could take more than an hour. And not only was this true for nighttime, but daytime naps as well. We spent a lot of time on this, but because she slept so well once we could get her to sleep, we didn't have too much to complain about.

For the past week, we've been trying to get her to sleep in her crib and have her continue to sleep through the night there. If we could get her into a deep sleep by rocking her in our arms, we could put her down and she could go several hours (3-4) before waking up and screaming inconsolably. If we tried to put her down too early, this screaming would start as soon as she hit the crib. The only solution was to just pick her up and bring her into bed with us. All of a sudden, at 4 months old, we were co-sleeping again. All in all, the situation wasn't working.

We made the somewhat controversial and difficult decision to "ferberize" Kacey. Ferberizing is a sleep training method developed by Dr. Richard Ferber, Director of Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children's Hospital here in Boston. I purchased and began reading Dr. Ferber's book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems and was amazed to find that it could have been written about our little Kacey and her sleep habits. We were certainly desperate to find a way to get her to sleep happily in her crib at night and we just were not able to figure out how to do it on our own. And here came Dr. Ferber with simple ideas to solve our problems. Could this by too good to be true?

Essentially, Dr. Ferber emphasizes a "cry and console" or "progressive waiting" mentality in order to break the sleep associations that are causing your child's sleep problems. The goal is not to have your baby cry until they fall asleep from pure exhaustion (which I believe is cruel and unnecessary) , but rather to teach them to fall asleep under the same circumstances in which they will wake up to during the night. If your baby is used to being rocked to sleep in your arms (as Kacey was), waking up in a strange place like a crib without being held can be a jarring and scary experience, causing inconsolable crying until they are "reunited" with the circumstances under which they fell asleep. Dr. Ferber's method can also be used to break the habit of multiple night feedings, needing a pacifier to sleep, or co-sleeping, to name a few.

Parents are to begin with a happy bedtime routine centered in the room where the child will be sleeping for the night. Then you lay them down in their crib drowsy, but awake, say goodnight, rub their belly (etc) and leave the room. Since this will be a departure from what they are used to, they will undoubtedly begin crying for you to return and pick them up. At increasing intervals of time, you are to enter the baby's room, reassure them that all will be fine, rub their belly, tell them you love them, and leave within 1 or 2 minutes while they are still awake. On the first night of ferberizing, you go in and check on the baby 3 minutes after they first start crying, 5 minutes after that if the crying has continued, and then every 10 minutes your baby cries until they fall asleep.

It's important, as in our case, not to pick up the baby, but only soothe them while they lay in the crib because you don't want to teach them that if they cry for a certain amount of time, you will come in and pick them up. Then you will be doing more harm than good. Ferber lays out a 7 night plan where you increase the length of your "response time" each night (e.g. On night 2, the intervals change to 5, 10, and 12 minutes and on night 7, they are 20, 25 and 30 minutes). Get the gist? Stay tuned for Part II: Kacey Meets Dr. Ferber...