Do we recall Hannah's sleep "issues"? A quick rundown....
- Must be nursed and/or rocked and/or held to go to sleep.
- Must be careful when you put her down.. if she is not 100% in her deep sleep she will wake up and scream.
- Process must start over.
- Some nights it took me 45 minutes and lots of stress to get her to sleep (not to mention entertain a 2 year old while I did it).
- Wake up every 2-3 (4 if I was lucky) hours.
Weekend of 8/15, Tom and I went to a wedding. My mom stayed with the girls overnight. I warned her about Hannah. She was unfazed. When we got home, she reported that Hannah slept from 9 PM until 5 Am. WHAT? Did she go to sleep easy? Yes.. just cried a few minutes.. WHAT?
I got a short lecture about how I needed to stop the crap and teach her to put herself to sleep. That night I used the same old routine and she woke up every 2-3 hours. Shoot me.
That is when I decided enough was enough. That Monday (8/17), the doctor at CHOP (for her pooping issues) assured me that she was physically fine and mentioned Dr. Ferber to me.
Off I went to research and that very night I implemented his plan.
Here is what my night was like:
- 8:15 PM-Nurse, cuddle, rock for 10 minutes... put Hannah down awake. Commence crying.
- 8:18 PM-Enter room, give pacifier, pat on back , SHHHHHH. Leave by 8:19 and 30 seconds. commence crying.
- 8:22 PM-Enter room. See above.
- 8:27 PM-Enter room. See above.
- 8:30 PM-Crying slows. Stops.
- 8:32 PM-Crying begins again.
- 8:32 PM - Enter room. See above. Small cries when I leave.
- 8:35 PM-Silence. Sleep.
She slept until 4:30 ish AM!!!!!
The next night I extended the times between re-entering the room. We went a total of 10 minutes.
Wednesday night - Same routine, nurse, cuddle, kiss, in bed awake. Cried 2 minutes... sleep. THROUGH THE NIGHT
Thursday night - See above. Total crying... 10 SECONDS. Yes, seconds.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and now Tuesday night..... Same routine. Put in her bed awake. She rolls over and goes to sleep. All. by. herself.
I am amazed.
She sleeps for long stretches at a time.. waking between 3 and 5 AM to nurse and go back to sleep.
I was convinced that doing this would make her withdrawn, untrusting, more clingy, and miserable the next day. I was wrong. She was her normal self, absolutely no change.
Ferber is NOT crying it out. He has a systematic way to teach babies to soothe themselves to sleep and when they wake up in the middle of the night so that they do not need their mother to help them. I love him.
Here is some information that I used to come to the decision to try his method:
After a good night's sleep, people often say "Wow I slept like a baby". They were obviously not talking about my kid.
