Please cry me only a small creek
June 9, 2015 10:43 AM Subscribe
Sleep training parents of Metafilter: if you did graduated extinction (aka "Ferberizing" / cry it out) with your baby, could you help us out with some advice about specific technical details? Reassuring stories and hugs are also very welcome.
We're getting ready to sleep train our 4.5 month old son, and we'd like some tips from parents who have successfully sleep trained using the graduated extinction method. Our specific questions about naps and feeding follow, though we'd also love to hear some generally reassuring stories, particularly if you had a baby who seemed to get less able to self soothe the more he cried, yet still found this method successful. (If it makes a difference, TheLittlestRobot, Nano Version's sleep issues are that he needs to be swaddled (a problem now that he's starting to roll), then breastfed into unconsciousness, then held for protracted periods of time in order to fall asleep. This is true of both naps and daytime sleep. He has at some points been down to 2-3 wakings per night, but is currently in a monumental sleep regression where he wakes every hour all night, and cannot be put down between 4-6am. He absolutely used to make efforts to self soothe, though not so much this past week or two. We have a good solid bedtime routine. )
Specific questions:
1) Did you do the cry it out procedure for night wakings only, or did you do naps as well? I don't know if I can manage to sleep train through the entire 24 hour period, but I'm concerned that if we still let him rely on feeding and holding for naps it will sabotage the good habits we're trying to instill at night.
2a) How did you deal with feeds? Did you set specific times that you would feed (eg midnight, then 4am)? Or did you still feed at every wake up, no matter how unnecessary for actual nutrition, then put the baby down awake?
2b) If you set specific feeding times, what did you do if your child woke up before the allotted time? I'm thinking we'll do the usual timetable of graduated checks up until the chosen feeding time has been reached, then feed and put him back down awake. Does this make sense? Or do I have to wait for him to successfully fall asleep, then feed him at the beginning of the *next* wake up? How close to your chosen time did you consider "close enough" for a feeding upon waking?
2c) Again with the feeds: if you set specific feeding times, how did you pick those times, and did you gradually lengthen the intervals between feed as you went along, or did you just decide what you wanted to do from the beginning? Our son has occasionally managed a 6 hr interval without food (and up until 2 weeks or so ago when we hit a major sleep regression, he was regularly doing a single 4-5 hr interval), so it seems like if bedtime is 6:30, he should be able to manage with just a midnight feed and another when he gets up at 6:30 or 7, but if he is currently eating every 1-2hrs overnight does it seem like that would be too sudden a change?
I would really prefer *not* to hear advice against sleep training / cry it out, suggestions for other methods, or horror stories about babies who did poorly with this method. I know baby sleep is a really controversial topic, but for this question please assume that we are aware of various sleep training approaches and the arguments associated with each, and are committed to giving graduated extinction a good solid try. Thank you from our entire sleep deprived household, including poor grouchy baby Robot!
We're getting ready to sleep train our 4.5 month old son, and we'd like some tips from parents who have successfully sleep trained using the graduated extinction method. Our specific questions about naps and feeding follow, though we'd also love to hear some generally reassuring stories, particularly if you had a baby who seemed to get less able to self soothe the more he cried, yet still found this method successful. (If it makes a difference, TheLittlestRobot, Nano Version's sleep issues are that he needs to be swaddled (a problem now that he's starting to roll), then breastfed into unconsciousness, then held for protracted periods of time in order to fall asleep. This is true of both naps and daytime sleep. He has at some points been down to 2-3 wakings per night, but is currently in a monumental sleep regression where he wakes every hour all night, and cannot be put down between 4-6am. He absolutely used to make efforts to self soothe, though not so much this past week or two. We have a good solid bedtime routine. )
Specific questions:
1) Did you do the cry it out procedure for night wakings only, or did you do naps as well? I don't know if I can manage to sleep train through the entire 24 hour period, but I'm concerned that if we still let him rely on feeding and holding for naps it will sabotage the good habits we're trying to instill at night.
2a) How did you deal with feeds? Did you set specific times that you would feed (eg midnight, then 4am)? Or did you still feed at every wake up, no matter how unnecessary for actual nutrition, then put the baby down awake?
2b) If you set specific feeding times, what did you do if your child woke up before the allotted time? I'm thinking we'll do the usual timetable of graduated checks up until the chosen feeding time has been reached, then feed and put him back down awake. Does this make sense? Or do I have to wait for him to successfully fall asleep, then feed him at the beginning of the *next* wake up? How close to your chosen time did you consider "close enough" for a feeding upon waking?
2c) Again with the feeds: if you set specific feeding times, how did you pick those times, and did you gradually lengthen the intervals between feed as you went along, or did you just decide what you wanted to do from the beginning? Our son has occasionally managed a 6 hr interval without food (and up until 2 weeks or so ago when we hit a major sleep regression, he was regularly doing a single 4-5 hr interval), so it seems like if bedtime is 6:30, he should be able to manage with just a midnight feed and another when he gets up at 6:30 or 7, but if he is currently eating every 1-2hrs overnight does it seem like that would be too sudden a change?
I would really prefer *not* to hear advice against sleep training / cry it out, suggestions for other methods, or horror stories about babies who did poorly with this method. I know baby sleep is a really controversial topic, but for this question please assume that we are aware of various sleep training approaches and the arguments associated with each, and are committed to giving graduated extinction a good solid try. Thank you from our entire sleep deprived household, including poor grouchy baby Robot!
Our bedtime was 8pm or 8:30pm and then he woke up at about 5am at that age. At around 6 months we moved bedtime back to 7 and he slept until 6am or so.
We did a 5 minute kitchen timer, and then by about 6 months a 15 minute timer. I read Weisbluth, but didn't stick to it strictly.
Our child was in daycare by that time, so we let them run naps. I would a have a bedtime routine (I think at that age ours was pjs and one story and a bottle) to differentiate from naps.
Regarding feeding, ours was largely on formula on that point, so I will let moms that were able to breastfeed longer address it.
posted by typecloud at 11:01 AM on June 9, 2015
We did a 5 minute kitchen timer, and then by about 6 months a 15 minute timer. I read Weisbluth, but didn't stick to it strictly.
Our child was in daycare by that time, so we let them run naps. I would a have a bedtime routine (I think at that age ours was pjs and one story and a bottle) to differentiate from naps.
Regarding feeding, ours was largely on formula on that point, so I will let moms that were able to breastfeed longer address it.
posted by typecloud at 11:01 AM on June 9, 2015
We did Sleep Easy. I highly recommend getting it on DVD from a friend or the library. Much easier to watch a 45min video than try to read the book when you're sleep deprived.
As for feedings, I fed until I was satisfied that he was really full before putting him down for bedtime. I fed on demand for night wakings, but kept track of the time of each feeding, and cut each session down by a minute each night (so if last night I fed for 10mins at midnight, tonight I would only feed for 9mins). Once it got down to about 4mins I was able to determine that LO was waking from habit but wasn't really hungry, so the next night I would wait and see if he would settle himself. Overall it took a couple of weeks to eliminate most of the night feedings (4am didn't go away until many months later).
We did naptime and bedtime training simultaneously.
I will submit that it's possible that your LO wants to be latched so much because he's beginning to teeth. When sleep got nightmarish at our house and LO wanted to be latched All. Night. Long. it turned out that he had six teeth coming in, all at once. So you may want to add some teething relief into your nighttime routine as well.
posted by vignettist at 11:17 AM on June 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
As for feedings, I fed until I was satisfied that he was really full before putting him down for bedtime. I fed on demand for night wakings, but kept track of the time of each feeding, and cut each session down by a minute each night (so if last night I fed for 10mins at midnight, tonight I would only feed for 9mins). Once it got down to about 4mins I was able to determine that LO was waking from habit but wasn't really hungry, so the next night I would wait and see if he would settle himself. Overall it took a couple of weeks to eliminate most of the night feedings (4am didn't go away until many months later).
We did naptime and bedtime training simultaneously.
I will submit that it's possible that your LO wants to be latched so much because he's beginning to teeth. When sleep got nightmarish at our house and LO wanted to be latched All. Night. Long. it turned out that he had six teeth coming in, all at once. So you may want to add some teething relief into your nighttime routine as well.
posted by vignettist at 11:17 AM on June 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
We also did Sleep Easy Solution, and I found the book significantly more approachable than Ferber, though it is the same graduated check ins. We waited until 7 months and night-weaned (using pre-emptive dream feeds) at the same time. Now at 10 days shy of her 1st birthday, baby bruno consistently sleeps from 7p-5:30 or 6a. Occasionally when she is ill she needs an overnight comfort feed but goes right back down after.
She was an early roller as well as hating swaddling, but we used the Magic Merlin suit for about 6 weeks to transition her away from swaddles and it worked brilliantly for us. We nap trained at the same time. (Rip off the bandaid, said my friends!)
Also, we found that us going in to check on her made her wail harder, so we eventually went full extinction. It sucked for a week, and now it's great.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Be strong. You can do this.
posted by hungrybruno at 11:39 AM on June 9, 2015
She was an early roller as well as hating swaddling, but we used the Magic Merlin suit for about 6 weeks to transition her away from swaddles and it worked brilliantly for us. We nap trained at the same time. (Rip off the bandaid, said my friends!)
Also, we found that us going in to check on her made her wail harder, so we eventually went full extinction. It sucked for a week, and now it's great.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Be strong. You can do this.
posted by hungrybruno at 11:39 AM on June 9, 2015
I only have two things to say, because other than this I know nothing and believe myself to be the opposite of an expert in baby sleep:
1. Night weaning is possible at this age, so you may want to try it. That is the only success we ever had with our first child, who never slept very well until he was around 3. We just stopped giving him the boob at night, and instead the non-nursing parent came in and bounced and cuddled and possibly gave a bottle in extremity. A couple of nights of that, and he stopped waking up at night.
2. 4 months is HARD. There is often a sleep regression at that point, and it will get better, maybe even soon. That is not me telling you not to sleep train, this is just me telling you that this once an hour business is temporary.
posted by hought20 at 12:05 PM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
1. Night weaning is possible at this age, so you may want to try it. That is the only success we ever had with our first child, who never slept very well until he was around 3. We just stopped giving him the boob at night, and instead the non-nursing parent came in and bounced and cuddled and possibly gave a bottle in extremity. A couple of nights of that, and he stopped waking up at night.
2. 4 months is HARD. There is often a sleep regression at that point, and it will get better, maybe even soon. That is not me telling you not to sleep train, this is just me telling you that this once an hour business is temporary.
posted by hought20 at 12:05 PM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
We didn't start Ferber until around 6 months, after Baby Metroid Baby was out of the swaddle. If you need to discontinue swaddling but your tiny robot is not yet ready, I've heard very good things about the Baby Merlin Magic Sleepsuit. He'd also stopped night feedings by then, which made it easier; you might want to consider night weaning, then transitioning out of the swaddle (or vice versa), and then starting sleep training once both those things are established.
If you haven't started a bedtime routine with your little, starting at the same time every night, now's the time to do it - it's another good thing to have in place when you start sleep training, and it's generally painless. Our routine is bath (when needed), change into pajamas, feeding, and reading two or three books. It used to be books before feeding, and he'd frequently conk out in the middle of feeding, but we switched it up because we didn't want him to learn to require a feeding to fall asleep.
We didn't sleep train for naps for a while; at first, we just wanted to get him napping however we could. I'm not gonna lie: it's only been in the last month or so that we've gotten a handle on naps, and I'm still not completely confident we've figured it out. Getting a handle on his nap schedule has done more for us than Ferberizing did. Perhaps if we did all the Ferber in one go it would have been easier? I don't know.
Hang in there; four months is an especially hard time for sleep, but it gets better even if you don't sleep train right away.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:11 PM on June 9, 2015
If you haven't started a bedtime routine with your little, starting at the same time every night, now's the time to do it - it's another good thing to have in place when you start sleep training, and it's generally painless. Our routine is bath (when needed), change into pajamas, feeding, and reading two or three books. It used to be books before feeding, and he'd frequently conk out in the middle of feeding, but we switched it up because we didn't want him to learn to require a feeding to fall asleep.
We didn't sleep train for naps for a while; at first, we just wanted to get him napping however we could. I'm not gonna lie: it's only been in the last month or so that we've gotten a handle on naps, and I'm still not completely confident we've figured it out. Getting a handle on his nap schedule has done more for us than Ferberizing did. Perhaps if we did all the Ferber in one go it would have been easier? I don't know.
Hang in there; four months is an especially hard time for sleep, but it gets better even if you don't sleep train right away.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:11 PM on June 9, 2015
I used basically the same methods outlined here and here, which is pretty much going in to check and comfort every ten minutes. She was about six months old at the time.
I am SO HAPPY we did it. It sucked at first, but it honestly wasn't that bad- my daughter has always been pretty easygoing and a fairly good sleeper, so even at the beginning she didn't cry more than half an hour.
She was used to waking up every two hours to eat, but she was already occasionally going most of the night without waking, so we knew she could do it, and she's on the heavy side of normal, so she didn't need the extra nutrition at night. We went straight to patting her on the back and soothing her for a minute in the night but not picking her up or feeding her until 5 am. It worked great.
There's been occasional backsliding since- colds, teething, a trip away from home for a couple of nights- and she was waking up and wanting a pacifier. Just this week I've gone from getting up to give her a pacifier on demand (anywhere from 1-3 times a night) to just not going into her room from bedtime (7-8pm) until feeding her at 5. After the 5 am feeding, she gets put back in the crib and usually goes back to sleep with no fussing.
We did napping at the same time, which has been a little rockier, but generally fine. She usually wakes up after one sleep cycle (45 minutes at this age) but often puts herself back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so, so I don't get her out of her crib until I'm sure she won't soothe herself back to sleep.
It's not a lot of fun, but I am so glad we did it. There aren't that many things that, at this early stage of parenting, I feel certain are clearly a good, successful choice, but this is one of them.
posted by Adridne at 12:13 PM on June 9, 2015
I am SO HAPPY we did it. It sucked at first, but it honestly wasn't that bad- my daughter has always been pretty easygoing and a fairly good sleeper, so even at the beginning she didn't cry more than half an hour.
She was used to waking up every two hours to eat, but she was already occasionally going most of the night without waking, so we knew she could do it, and she's on the heavy side of normal, so she didn't need the extra nutrition at night. We went straight to patting her on the back and soothing her for a minute in the night but not picking her up or feeding her until 5 am. It worked great.
There's been occasional backsliding since- colds, teething, a trip away from home for a couple of nights- and she was waking up and wanting a pacifier. Just this week I've gone from getting up to give her a pacifier on demand (anywhere from 1-3 times a night) to just not going into her room from bedtime (7-8pm) until feeding her at 5. After the 5 am feeding, she gets put back in the crib and usually goes back to sleep with no fussing.
We did napping at the same time, which has been a little rockier, but generally fine. She usually wakes up after one sleep cycle (45 minutes at this age) but often puts herself back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so, so I don't get her out of her crib until I'm sure she won't soothe herself back to sleep.
It's not a lot of fun, but I am so glad we did it. There aren't that many things that, at this early stage of parenting, I feel certain are clearly a good, successful choice, but this is one of them.
posted by Adridne at 12:13 PM on June 9, 2015
Best answer: A few tips: take him out of the swaddle. It's not recommended at this age. part of the ripping the bandaid off thing, since he's going to cry anyway. Be ready for it to be even harder than you expect and to maybe require drinking some wine or going to a part of the house where you can't hear as well in between intervals. Let the parent who is less likely to be upset by it be in charge and maybe the other parent can even leave the house for the evening.
I had great success with graduated extinction. I did it for naptime too, and just had a plan for how long the nap was supposed to be and if she got to that point and wasn't asleep, I'd get her up and try again later. It generally works pretty quickly so you don't have to devote weeks of time to it.
for the feeding, I set a specific time. baby should be able to go 6 hours, so I did a dream feed at 10 to 11pm. He is not eating every hour really - it is comfort nursing, so you will probably find a lot of that goes away within a few days as he learns new sleep associations and links sleep cycles. I try to set the timing of the dream feed to pre-empt the first wakeup, which you may be able to move to as well.
there is no science or evidence base on this, so I wouldnt sweat exact minute intervals either for soothing or when you decide it's close enough to feed him. If you have time to go back to sleep, wait, and if you don't, feed him, would be one approach. Every baby is different so there is no one right way, so do what seems to work best for you.
here's a hug from the trenches with baby #2! I literally typed this in between check-ins...
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:27 PM on June 9, 2015
I had great success with graduated extinction. I did it for naptime too, and just had a plan for how long the nap was supposed to be and if she got to that point and wasn't asleep, I'd get her up and try again later. It generally works pretty quickly so you don't have to devote weeks of time to it.
for the feeding, I set a specific time. baby should be able to go 6 hours, so I did a dream feed at 10 to 11pm. He is not eating every hour really - it is comfort nursing, so you will probably find a lot of that goes away within a few days as he learns new sleep associations and links sleep cycles. I try to set the timing of the dream feed to pre-empt the first wakeup, which you may be able to move to as well.
there is no science or evidence base on this, so I wouldnt sweat exact minute intervals either for soothing or when you decide it's close enough to feed him. If you have time to go back to sleep, wait, and if you don't, feed him, would be one approach. Every baby is different so there is no one right way, so do what seems to work best for you.
here's a hug from the trenches with baby #2! I literally typed this in between check-ins...
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:27 PM on June 9, 2015
When we were sleep training our little boy ear plugs were an essential bit of equipment. The non-attending parent can ignore the cries better with the plugs, and the designated child listener can use them as well. The cries are cut from brain piercing to merely very annoying. This makes the sad task of ignoring the baby a little easier. Buy them in by the dozen, as they will fall out while you sleep and get lost in the bedding.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 12:32 PM on June 9, 2015
posted by Midnight Skulker at 12:32 PM on June 9, 2015
The Baby Merlin suit thingie is sorcery, and the inventor(s) shall be escorted into Paradise by a choir of beauteous angelic creatures to sit on the Right Hand of the Throne for eternity.
posted by aramaic at 1:58 PM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by aramaic at 1:58 PM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
We had a horrible time trying sleep training at 4 mos with our first. Such a failure that it lead us to switch doctors. Our next doctor, whom we LOVE thought it was pretty crazy to sleep train at 4 mos. She said she never recommends it before 6 mos. When we tried at 6, it was over in a weekend and he was totally sleep trained (still an awesome sleeper at 2.75 yo). With our second, we didn't even try until 6 mos and again, it went off without a hitch.
Another thing that helped us immensely with the first was having a video baby monitor (we used an old iPad and an app called Cloud Baby Monitor) so that we could check in without physically entering the room. It was a life saver to assure us that no, the small child was not in act dying in the other room, he was just mad. Also, along those lines, every time he started crying I started a timer on my phone for further reassurance that no, he hasn't been crying for hours, it's only been about 10 minutes. Just know that this has to be done and it will benefit everyone in the long run.
With our second we didn't use the Merlin things, we used the zippity zip sleeper to great success (until she was rolling over), so I endorse that one.
As for naps, I don't recall them being an issue for us, though the summer before our first turned 1, the only way he would take an afternoon nap was to ride in the car. Needless to say, I listened to a lot of audiobooks that summer :-D
Good luck and God speed. You'll get through it and so will your little one!
posted by ThaBombShelterSmith at 3:47 PM on June 9, 2015
Another thing that helped us immensely with the first was having a video baby monitor (we used an old iPad and an app called Cloud Baby Monitor) so that we could check in without physically entering the room. It was a life saver to assure us that no, the small child was not in act dying in the other room, he was just mad. Also, along those lines, every time he started crying I started a timer on my phone for further reassurance that no, he hasn't been crying for hours, it's only been about 10 minutes. Just know that this has to be done and it will benefit everyone in the long run.
With our second we didn't use the Merlin things, we used the zippity zip sleeper to great success (until she was rolling over), so I endorse that one.
As for naps, I don't recall them being an issue for us, though the summer before our first turned 1, the only way he would take an afternoon nap was to ride in the car. Needless to say, I listened to a lot of audiobooks that summer :-D
Good luck and God speed. You'll get through it and so will your little one!
posted by ThaBombShelterSmith at 3:47 PM on June 9, 2015
Currently doing this for my six month old. We're on night 5 and it's SO MUCH BETTER (~20 minutes of crying at 745 bedtime, one or no check-ins at night, feed at 5, wake at 8). Now that said, I tried at 4.5 months and it didn't work; he wasn't ready (also, that sleep regression is a bitch and complicates things a lot - if you can hang on two weeks you might have better luck). I feel like he made some cognitive leaps in the last few weeks that are making it work better now. One thing in particular is that he's now showing anticipation, like in peek-a-boo and other games, and recognizing the routines of our home. This was not true at 4.5 months and I feel like is kind of crucial in having CIO work in terms of bedtime routine. He also still needed to be swaddled until 5.5 months, and we had to lose the swaddle to be able to CIO - I think a baby ought to be able to access their hands to self-soothe, be able to find a comfortable position in bed, and hold onto a lovey, so full swaddling and CIO seems cruel to me.
As for your specific questions:
1) We are doing CIO for nighttime only and I will work on naps in a few weeks. I use the swing and a pacifier for naps, but he goes into the swing awake and I am slowly weaning down the swing speed until he'll go in it without it moving; then I'll put him in the crib. If you have a swing, USE IT for naps. Troublesometots.com has some good information about swing napping (and general CIO sleep training; there's also a Facebook group). That said, nighttime sleep and daytime sleep differ in a lot of ways, and you can work on one without working on the other, or you can do them together. One thing to watch out for is letting him sleep all day if he's been screaming all night. Slightly longer (or more) naps are okay, but not too much.
2a&b&c) We set specific times - he'd already been getting a dreamfeed at 11, so we kept that for the few two nights but he didn't really eat (less than 1 oz) so I guess he didn't need it. He consistently woke between 3 and 4 prior to training so I'm willing to feed him after 3; generally he wakes now between 4:30 and 5 for it. If he woke at 2:30, I'd let him cry until he slept again, and then feed at the next waking. Do not let him cry for half an hour and feed; that way lies madness!
Best advice:
For the bedtime routine, separate nursing and bedtime by at least 20 minutes, and don't use a pacifier. Every time it falls out you'll have to check in. The first two nights are a little harder, but it works faster in the long run.
Give it a solid week of consistency. We did a week of training at 4.5 months and saw zero improvement from day 1 to day 7. I knew he wasn't ready and we went back to responding at all wake-ups with pacifier or feeding or patting. We didn't break him, even though he was too young for it.
Day 2 is usually the worst. Just be prepared for that. It doesn't mean it's not working. Day 2 we probably got about two hours sleep but day 3 we saw a HUGE improvement. This was true of my daughter as well (CIO at ~10 months; she's now 2.75 years old).
Good luck!!
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:21 PM on June 9, 2015
As for your specific questions:
1) We are doing CIO for nighttime only and I will work on naps in a few weeks. I use the swing and a pacifier for naps, but he goes into the swing awake and I am slowly weaning down the swing speed until he'll go in it without it moving; then I'll put him in the crib. If you have a swing, USE IT for naps. Troublesometots.com has some good information about swing napping (and general CIO sleep training; there's also a Facebook group). That said, nighttime sleep and daytime sleep differ in a lot of ways, and you can work on one without working on the other, or you can do them together. One thing to watch out for is letting him sleep all day if he's been screaming all night. Slightly longer (or more) naps are okay, but not too much.
2a&b&c) We set specific times - he'd already been getting a dreamfeed at 11, so we kept that for the few two nights but he didn't really eat (less than 1 oz) so I guess he didn't need it. He consistently woke between 3 and 4 prior to training so I'm willing to feed him after 3; generally he wakes now between 4:30 and 5 for it. If he woke at 2:30, I'd let him cry until he slept again, and then feed at the next waking. Do not let him cry for half an hour and feed; that way lies madness!
Best advice:
For the bedtime routine, separate nursing and bedtime by at least 20 minutes, and don't use a pacifier. Every time it falls out you'll have to check in. The first two nights are a little harder, but it works faster in the long run.
Give it a solid week of consistency. We did a week of training at 4.5 months and saw zero improvement from day 1 to day 7. I knew he wasn't ready and we went back to responding at all wake-ups with pacifier or feeding or patting. We didn't break him, even though he was too young for it.
Day 2 is usually the worst. Just be prepared for that. It doesn't mean it's not working. Day 2 we probably got about two hours sleep but day 3 we saw a HUGE improvement. This was true of my daughter as well (CIO at ~10 months; she's now 2.75 years old).
Good luck!!
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:21 PM on June 9, 2015
Best answer: We did a modified Ferber method at 5 months and it worked miraculously and immediately. We stopped trying to swaddle and just put her down with some favorite safe friends to thrash. You have to adapt whatever method you get to your circumstances but as close as you can stick to the book (yes, do read the book) the better. Within 2 days thee baby was sleeping 12 hours at a time. (usually 530-530 or 6-6) She does get up at first light but that's the gig. She naps lightly at daycare which is actually helpful for sleep training too.
Specific questions:
1) Correct. For naps we would come back in once and soothe but not pick up or feed, if she kept crying we took her out, nap over playtime again. If she got tired later we'd try a short nap in mid-afternoon but we'd wake her up after 1 hour if she did go down so she'd be tired around bedtime.
2a) When she woke up in the middle of the night we would try to soothe 2x, once at 5mins then waiting 10mins. If she still was inconsolable we'd feed but then lay her back down awake and start the febering again. It worked fine and gradually she'd go back to sleep after 1 soothe. Now she soothes herself.
2b) Give your kid enough food during the day, by 5 months they do not need to feed during the night at all. If you have to feed, feed only once you've tried the ferber soothing training.
2c) It's not too sudden. Our daughter went from feeding every night 3-4 times to feeding 0 times in 2 nights. YMMV of course but kids can sleep through the night without losing any nutrition. Your kid is most likely not hungry or thirsty-they just have no idea how to put themselves back to sleep, That's what you're training them to do.
Good luck!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:24 AM on June 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Specific questions:
1) Correct. For naps we would come back in once and soothe but not pick up or feed, if she kept crying we took her out, nap over playtime again. If she got tired later we'd try a short nap in mid-afternoon but we'd wake her up after 1 hour if she did go down so she'd be tired around bedtime.
2a) When she woke up in the middle of the night we would try to soothe 2x, once at 5mins then waiting 10mins. If she still was inconsolable we'd feed but then lay her back down awake and start the febering again. It worked fine and gradually she'd go back to sleep after 1 soothe. Now she soothes herself.
2b) Give your kid enough food during the day, by 5 months they do not need to feed during the night at all. If you have to feed, feed only once you've tried the ferber soothing training.
2c) It's not too sudden. Our daughter went from feeding every night 3-4 times to feeding 0 times in 2 nights. YMMV of course but kids can sleep through the night without losing any nutrition. Your kid is most likely not hungry or thirsty-they just have no idea how to put themselves back to sleep, That's what you're training them to do.
Good luck!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:24 AM on June 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for all the answers! It's taken a long time for me to return with a follow-up, because this didn't turn out to be entirely straightforward for us -- I've come to believe that it's true that some kids are just not great sleepers, because the whole "feeding took care of itself" thing definitely didn't happen for us! Reading other people's detailed stories really helped me when we were trying to figure this out, so for anyone struggling with these issues in the future, here's what happened with our little guy, in excruciatingly minute detail:
We started when our little guy was 21 weeks, and just starting to improve a little bit following a hideous 4 month sleep regression that had him waking up every 20-60 minutes, and often being up continuously from 3-5:30am. He did have a solid, if somewhat dysfunctional, bedtime routine (bath, feed, massage, feed again to sleep), and a regular bedtime of 7pm, which we kept the same.
We followed the Ferber method of graduated check-ins. We also did naps at the same time, because for us at least, it was clear that his night sleep problems and day sleep problems were identical, and we didn't want to sabotage his night efforts by nursing him down during the day. We did have a backup plan of walking him in the carrier for some naps if he was getting hideously sleep deprived, but never needed to use that.
I didn't follow Ferber's suggested weaning method, because we had been feeding just about every hour, and none of those feeds seemed like true comfort feeds -- even if he just wants comfort, baby robot will happily eat whatever milk is available -- and I didn't have the patience to try to wean down 8-10 night time feeds. So we settled on a midnight dream feed only, because back in the distant days before his most recent sleep regression he had occasionally been able to go 6 hours without a feed at night. We decided that if he woke up close enough to feed time that we didn't think he'd be able to cry himself back to sleep before the feed, we would feed at that wake-up but always put him down awake. This turned out to be a problem -- around 2/3 of the time baby Robot would wake up before the dream feed and get fed upon waking (with no soothe first). Many people I know (both IRL and online) seem to have done something similar and had it work -- their child would self-soothe except when actually hungry - but this did not turn out to be the case for us.
We made incredibly impressive gains early on -- his first cry was only 18 minutes, after which he slept for 5 delightful hours. This was particularly impressive since immediately before sleep training he would routinely cry for much longer than that (30-40 minutes) even when I was making all possible efforts to calm him. On night 3 he slept through except for the dream feed; by the end of the week we had completely separated naps from feeding and my partner was able to put him down for naps, something which had never happened before. Both at night and during the day, we would hear him wake up, cry out once or twice, and then roll over and go back to sleep, which was truly delicious.
BUT, starting around day 5, he started crying for maybe 30 minutes at some random time between midnight and 3am, and he would also wake around 4 am and wail continuously until around 5:30 or 6, when he would either pass out for a half hour or so or we would give up and get him up for the day. We were super confused by this, because we could *see* that he knew how to self soothe (he would do it at other times of night and day), and he really didn't seem super hungry when we got him up in the morning, so we didn't think he needed to be fed during that long wakeup. We decided to try to be more consistent about the dream feed -- moving it 45 minutes earlier to try to pre-empt his waking up, and being consistent about never feeding him if he woke up on his own before that; a few days after we did that, he woke up 10 minutes before the new earlier dream feed and cried for 2.5 terrible hours, until finally he dropped off for 5 minutes and I was able to rush in to feed him. That was awful enough that we decided to forget the dream feeds and let him wake up himself, and if he was unable to soothe himself back to sleep in 20 minutes, we would do a single feed. The first night we tried this (the night after the 2.5 hours of crying), he slept through the night, from 7pm - 6am! He didn't even seem that ravenous when he woke at 6. On subsequent nights, he woke up between 2:30-5:30 and couldn't seem to fall back asleep without a feed. This didn't seem too terrible (though I foudn it odd how much the feeding time wandered), and I thought we were settling into a pattern of one late night feed, with the occasional awesome all-the-way-through night. Then *3 weeks* after starting the whole epic sleep training journey, he woke up at 12:50am, which just seemed way too early to feed him, and this time wailed heartbreakingly for 3.5 hours. At some point during that 3.5 hours we realized the possibility of being fed was enough of a reward that at some times of night he just wouldn't be able to use his ability to self-soothe, so we decided that we were just going to completely stop night feeds. (This decision was so much easier because at that point he had had two nights where he slept straight through with no problems, so we knew he didn't physically need the feed.) So after his 3.5 hour cry, he settled himself for an hour, then cried for another 45 minutes before sleeping through until morning. And actually . . . that was finally it! We braced for more awfulness the next few nights while he learned that he really was never going to get a night feed again, but that long terrible night was enough -- he has slept through the night since then.
TLDR: we needed to night wean to make the sleep training work; there was just no way to be consistent enough with feeds to have baby Robot understand that he really, truly, could not get fed at random times of night, and the dream feed thing just caused him to wake up earlier and earlier in anticipation of the feed and cry for hours to try and get it. Everyone else I know who sleep trained has been able to keep one feed a night, but this was just not the case with our little guy.
Also I should clarify what success looks like -- baby Robot now goes down willingly for naps and bedtime and will soothe himself back to sleep if he wakes up, but he still does cry for a few minutes (usually 5 minutes, but up to 30 minutes) to get himself to sleep, and at least 3 nights a week he will still have a little cry somewhere around 4 or 5 am -- this can last for anything from 1 - 40 minutes (so we are still sometimes going in for a soothe or two), but he always manages to get himself back to sleep, which I think is the closest to a full win we will ever get with this guy.
Hope that helps someone in the future -- I feel like most sleep training stories I've heard were either about complete miraculous success within 5 days or utter failure, so I wanted to share the longer process we ended up going through. It has been 100% worth it -- I am so so grateful to have my evenings back, my partner is thrilled to be able to help with naps and bedtime, and with the exception of those two really rough nights, baby Robot actually cried *less* during the sleep training process than pre-sleep-training! He is clearly happier, and I can see that the pre-sleep crying is part of his process -- if I put him down too early, he will happily play until he is tired, then cry for a few minutes and wiggle himself to sleep. Turns out that given the chance (and several weeks of trouble shooting), he is much better at self-soothing than we ever were at soothing him externally. Yay!
posted by TheLittlestRobot at 6:38 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
We started when our little guy was 21 weeks, and just starting to improve a little bit following a hideous 4 month sleep regression that had him waking up every 20-60 minutes, and often being up continuously from 3-5:30am. He did have a solid, if somewhat dysfunctional, bedtime routine (bath, feed, massage, feed again to sleep), and a regular bedtime of 7pm, which we kept the same.
We followed the Ferber method of graduated check-ins. We also did naps at the same time, because for us at least, it was clear that his night sleep problems and day sleep problems were identical, and we didn't want to sabotage his night efforts by nursing him down during the day. We did have a backup plan of walking him in the carrier for some naps if he was getting hideously sleep deprived, but never needed to use that.
I didn't follow Ferber's suggested weaning method, because we had been feeding just about every hour, and none of those feeds seemed like true comfort feeds -- even if he just wants comfort, baby robot will happily eat whatever milk is available -- and I didn't have the patience to try to wean down 8-10 night time feeds. So we settled on a midnight dream feed only, because back in the distant days before his most recent sleep regression he had occasionally been able to go 6 hours without a feed at night. We decided that if he woke up close enough to feed time that we didn't think he'd be able to cry himself back to sleep before the feed, we would feed at that wake-up but always put him down awake. This turned out to be a problem -- around 2/3 of the time baby Robot would wake up before the dream feed and get fed upon waking (with no soothe first). Many people I know (both IRL and online) seem to have done something similar and had it work -- their child would self-soothe except when actually hungry - but this did not turn out to be the case for us.
We made incredibly impressive gains early on -- his first cry was only 18 minutes, after which he slept for 5 delightful hours. This was particularly impressive since immediately before sleep training he would routinely cry for much longer than that (30-40 minutes) even when I was making all possible efforts to calm him. On night 3 he slept through except for the dream feed; by the end of the week we had completely separated naps from feeding and my partner was able to put him down for naps, something which had never happened before. Both at night and during the day, we would hear him wake up, cry out once or twice, and then roll over and go back to sleep, which was truly delicious.
BUT, starting around day 5, he started crying for maybe 30 minutes at some random time between midnight and 3am, and he would also wake around 4 am and wail continuously until around 5:30 or 6, when he would either pass out for a half hour or so or we would give up and get him up for the day. We were super confused by this, because we could *see* that he knew how to self soothe (he would do it at other times of night and day), and he really didn't seem super hungry when we got him up in the morning, so we didn't think he needed to be fed during that long wakeup. We decided to try to be more consistent about the dream feed -- moving it 45 minutes earlier to try to pre-empt his waking up, and being consistent about never feeding him if he woke up on his own before that; a few days after we did that, he woke up 10 minutes before the new earlier dream feed and cried for 2.5 terrible hours, until finally he dropped off for 5 minutes and I was able to rush in to feed him. That was awful enough that we decided to forget the dream feeds and let him wake up himself, and if he was unable to soothe himself back to sleep in 20 minutes, we would do a single feed. The first night we tried this (the night after the 2.5 hours of crying), he slept through the night, from 7pm - 6am! He didn't even seem that ravenous when he woke at 6. On subsequent nights, he woke up between 2:30-5:30 and couldn't seem to fall back asleep without a feed. This didn't seem too terrible (though I foudn it odd how much the feeding time wandered), and I thought we were settling into a pattern of one late night feed, with the occasional awesome all-the-way-through night. Then *3 weeks* after starting the whole epic sleep training journey, he woke up at 12:50am, which just seemed way too early to feed him, and this time wailed heartbreakingly for 3.5 hours. At some point during that 3.5 hours we realized the possibility of being fed was enough of a reward that at some times of night he just wouldn't be able to use his ability to self-soothe, so we decided that we were just going to completely stop night feeds. (This decision was so much easier because at that point he had had two nights where he slept straight through with no problems, so we knew he didn't physically need the feed.) So after his 3.5 hour cry, he settled himself for an hour, then cried for another 45 minutes before sleeping through until morning. And actually . . . that was finally it! We braced for more awfulness the next few nights while he learned that he really was never going to get a night feed again, but that long terrible night was enough -- he has slept through the night since then.
TLDR: we needed to night wean to make the sleep training work; there was just no way to be consistent enough with feeds to have baby Robot understand that he really, truly, could not get fed at random times of night, and the dream feed thing just caused him to wake up earlier and earlier in anticipation of the feed and cry for hours to try and get it. Everyone else I know who sleep trained has been able to keep one feed a night, but this was just not the case with our little guy.
Also I should clarify what success looks like -- baby Robot now goes down willingly for naps and bedtime and will soothe himself back to sleep if he wakes up, but he still does cry for a few minutes (usually 5 minutes, but up to 30 minutes) to get himself to sleep, and at least 3 nights a week he will still have a little cry somewhere around 4 or 5 am -- this can last for anything from 1 - 40 minutes (so we are still sometimes going in for a soothe or two), but he always manages to get himself back to sleep, which I think is the closest to a full win we will ever get with this guy.
Hope that helps someone in the future -- I feel like most sleep training stories I've heard were either about complete miraculous success within 5 days or utter failure, so I wanted to share the longer process we ended up going through. It has been 100% worth it -- I am so so grateful to have my evenings back, my partner is thrilled to be able to help with naps and bedtime, and with the exception of those two really rough nights, baby Robot actually cried *less* during the sleep training process than pre-sleep-training! He is clearly happier, and I can see that the pre-sleep crying is part of his process -- if I put him down too early, he will happily play until he is tired, then cry for a few minutes and wiggle himself to sleep. Turns out that given the chance (and several weeks of trouble shooting), he is much better at self-soothing than we ever were at soothing him externally. Yay!
posted by TheLittlestRobot at 6:38 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
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