Tag Archives: Ferber method

Mar 30 2013
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Sleep

The Battle for Sleepytime: Night 1

The Tobester knows what we are up to and is waging a counter-attack of epic non-sleeping proportions.  His original battle strategy of multiple wakeups followed by an hour of crying and being comforted anywhere but his bed has been joined by an assault on daytime naps. Once brag-worthy in their consistency, they have disintegrated into restless 20-minute catnaps. Even our Old Faithful – the 9am sleep of at least 1 1/4 hours – has fallen victim. Today’s daytime sleeps totalled just 60 minutes. Crap.

Rewind to last night. We had a game plan: in-cot settling with pats; our “sleepy song” and shushing as our primary settling technique.  If he continued to be upset or wouldn’t stay down flat on the bed, we would move to PUPD (Pick Up, Put Down) – continuing the pats, sleepy song & shushing as we tread the well-worn track along the length of his bedroom. We would wait until he was dozy and put him in his bed, then leave the room. If he cried we would leave him for five minutes before going in and starting the routine again. This is where I knew I was going to struggle. I’m a first time parent. A Smother Mother. One minute of my baby crying feels like ten. We were never going to be the type of people to use CIO (Cry It Out or the Ferber Method) as part of our sleep training –  a cuddle and verbal reassurance from his parents is much more effective for our baby. At least for now.

One of our biggest obstacles at the moment (aside from my inability to let him cry) is Toby’s mobility. When we rouses from sleep he gets up on all fours and moves around. His latest trick is to crawl to the end of the cot nearest the door and haul himself up on the bars to look for us. Invariably he loses his grip as he yells or cries and bang! Head meets cot bars and all hell breaks loose. This makes it infinitely more difficult to settle him as he’s now sore, had a bit of a fright and wide awake.

Night 1 – How it Panned Out:

  • 6:45pm: Down for bed
  • 9:45pm: Cries briefly but self-settles. Parents fist-pump the air.
  • 10:50pm (5 mins awake): Wakes up. Resettled in the cot within 5 minutes.
  • 12:25am (15 mins awake): Wakes up. Lunging for my chest so fed. As soon as I start feeding I know I should have tried harder. I was tired, annoyed and knew it would get him back to sleep. He was fidgety and took a short feed because it was there, not because he was hungry.
  • 2:45am (45 mins awake): Wakes up. In-cot settling and PUPD fail. We leave him to cry for what felt like 20 minutes but was probably only about four. We can hear him moving around then silence. BANG! Head hits bars, crying amplifies. I feed again (I know, I know) and he falls asleep quickly.
  • 6:45am: Up for the day.

So, overall not great. We still fed twice overnight and really didn’t see any change. But it was only the first night and everything we’ve read says it will take 3-7 days to see a result.

In terms of his daytime naps going to hell I’m putting that down to a badly timed busy day. We had a Skype call with the grandparents just after breakfast (and prior to nap time), then had to meet family for lunch. He had just fallen asleep in the car when we got there so we gently moved him into his pram, but all the new voices woke him up. I managed to get him back down again within half an hour, but the damage had been done. His final afternoon sleep should have been the saviour but again, it was badly timed, with the Tobester going down just before dinnertime! Fair to assume hunger cut that one short. Thankfully tomorrow and Monday are fairly clear of commitments so we’ll be able to stick to our daytime nap routine at home.

Night 2 – The Game Plan:

  1. Continue settling plan as per Night 1.
  2. Try to avoid feeding to sleep unless everything else has failed or he shows clear hunger signs (diving at chest, sucking shoulder, hunger cry).
  3. Let him cry a bit more. Wait at least 5 minutes before going in to settle in cot/PUPD.
  4. We’ve both read this article on sleep training from the Lamari Parenting website. It’s basically confirmed our approach so far, and reinforced that we need to leave him a bit longer to try to settle himself. And if that means some tears before bedtime then so be it.

To be continued…

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