I think nowadays, most new parents have heard of the infamous “Ferber Method” of allowing children to fall asleep by controlling the amount of time between “comforting interventions.” Dr. Richard Ferber’s theory, is that babies will learn to self-comfort after a series of increasing intervals of parental comforting, each interval getting increasingly longer until the child finally sleeps through the night, unassisted by parents. Well, Dr. Ferber does not live at my house, and if he did, he would have had his bags packed and be waiting at the front door for the next bus outta town long ago!
A few months ago, on the prompting of our concerned parents, my husband and I decided that it was high time we get our son to sleep in his own bed. Afterall, he is a restless sleeper, and we were getting rather tired of being clocked in the face night after night by a flailing arm, leg, or the worst, his head! I was still nursing Liam at the time, and had found the nightly nursing sessions much easier when I simply brought him into bed with us, and allowed him to nurse himself back to sleep. The only problem was that Liam had taken a liking to bed sharing, and no longer wanted to sleep in his crib, where he knew he was alone. One *horrible* night, about 3 months ago, we decided to “bite the bullet” and “Ferberize” our poor son! Unbeknownst to us at the time, this night would go down in history as the worst night ever known to new parents (well, okay, maybe not the worst night, but it was pretty darn ugly!)
We started the night as usual. I nursed Liam to sleep, and when he woke around midnight, we delayed going to see him for a few extra minutes longer than we normally would. Needless to say, Liam cried. After a few minutes, of escallating volume, we went in to reassure him that he was okay, then said goodnight and left. The intervals between each comforting visit to him in his crib got longer, and longer, and Liam’s crying got louder and louder. In the articles that I have read, nowhere does it suggest that some babies will indeed scream for five straight hours during the introduction of the Ferber Method, nor does it warn you that there are children that will cry so violently, that they drip with sweat, and are on the verge of vomiting, but Liam was all of these things. Our sleepless night of trips back and forth to his room to provide comfort were completely in vain, and finally after listening to heart-wrenching cries for over five hours, we buckled, and brought him back to our bed, where he fell fast asleep within a few short minutes. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for my husband and myself. I think we both could have used a good stiff drink by that point!
To this day, I am not sure who this approach was harder on, Liam or his bewhildered parents. I have spoken with some of my peers with children the same age as our son, who have found the Ferber method to be a great success in their homes, after much shorter and calmer bouts of crying. There are also those lucky buggers, who’s children take to the crib so naturally, like a fish does to water. You know who you are, and stop grinning!
I am a firm believer that what is good for the goose, isn’t necessarily good for the gander. All children are different. No two babies are carbon copies in personality, and it seems that with Liam, we have on our hands one extremely strong-willed child!
In the big book of Mommy No-No’s, is doing things which just don’t feel right. You have to trust your instincts sometimes, and follow your heart (cheesy yes, but true) My instincts told me that the Ferber Method was not going to work for our family, and indeed, it did not. Sometimes, listening to the advice of others is the right thing to do, and sometimes it isn’t.
So, as I write this post, our son is in his bed, sweetly sleeping, rosy-cheeked, warm and likely dreaming of toys, walks outside and chasing cats…
Well, to be honest, he is in *our* bed, but for the time being, it works. Finding a comfort zone is what it’s all about, and from the looks of things, he’s pretty comfy!
My two youngest children nursed and slept in my bed, and my oldest, whom I had at 21, was nursed then put in a crib and allowed to cry to “get him used to being in his bed” because thats what all of my relatives told me. I now have two well adjusted, happy kids, and my oldest has tons of emotional problems and brushes with the law at age 22. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It is a matter of security, trust, and shapes a baby’s whole outlook on the world.
I loved your post!!!!
I agree that parents need to do what is right for them and should not do things which are clearly outside the values they have for their family.
I have to say, though, that Ferber himself was very clear (as am I and other friends who used the Ferber method) that it often takes many nights. It was very difficult but for us it worked after one night and our daughter has been sleeping independently ever since.
I take issue with Kathryn’s assertion that her eldest child’s problems are due to allowing her child to cry while he got used to sleeping in his own bed. Children (people, really) have issues for a variety of reasons. This may be an unpopular thing to say but the fact that she was only 21 when she had him and that she was so unsure about what to do as a parent that she was making decisions based on others opinions rather than her own research and thought doesn’t bode well for a confident parenting relationship.
I’m not saying that her child’s problems are entirely her “fault” but for her to try to pin ALL of the blame for her child’s problems on the way in which he learned to sleep independently seems rather contrived and frankly ridiculous.
I must update this by adding that since having our first child, my opinion of the Ferber Method has changed slightly. Our second child was successfully “sleep trained” using what we like to refer to as “Ferber Lite” meaning we did a variation on the Ferber Method with great success. It worked after only a few times, and our daughter is sleeping through the night often…
I agree that there are numerous factors that affect child development, and the nature/nurture side of things must also be considered.
Children do need to learn independence, but in my opinion, suffering is not okay. It must be judged on a case by case basis.
The Ferber method assumes that you put children to bed awake. Not that it is bad to nurse children to sleep but this short cuts the self-soothing that children learn on their own – so part of the difficulty here might have been that the Ferber method was not actually followed.
The Ferber method needs to be modified when your children are physically hurt, sick, or emotionally upset (frightened) – which is not usually the case when children cry when trying to fall asleep.