New to this topic? I suggest you read this post first. I left off with…
Then I started to go to mom/baby meet ups and started hearing about (most) everyone practicing sleep training, usually a form of cry it out.
I started to wonder if we should try it again; we had tried it briefly back at 3.5 months or so much gave up after a few nights of Edith screaming for too long. We discussed things and decided that since Edith was a bit older that she might take to it better so we decided to try The Baby Whisperer pick up/put down method. After about 65 (yes I counted) pink up, soothe, comforting phrase, put down there was no letting up and ultimately it just seemed to make Edith more angry. We tried this for about three days and after 247 attempts we deciding that rather than seeing any improvement that things were just getting worse.
Then we tried The Ferber Method, a method that supposedly teaches your baby to sooth themselves. In this method you practice a calming bedtime routine and put your baby to bed awake even if they cry out in protest. You then practice progressive waiting before you go in and check them and comfort before once again leaving for a longer period of time. We tried this and it was terrible. I had read about so many parents using this method and how by day two they saw improvement and by day three their child was going to bed on their own and most nights sleeping 9-13 hours without needing to go in to feed or soothe.
After four days things had gotten progressively worse; feeling frustrated Neil and I sat down and talked about what we had tried and how we were feeling about things. We both came to the conclusion that these two methods didn’t feel natural to us at all. We felt anxious and stressed and overall it just wasn’t working.
So we talked about what was working.
When it was all laid out in front of us we saw that we kept returning to the same routine of nursing in bed, putting Edith down in her crib, rising to soothe/nurse 1-2 times (more when sick, traveling or teething) and most nights bringing her to bed with us around 3am or so. Over the past 6 months that is what we had returned to every.single.time.We would try a different approach, a popular method and then we would go back to ol’faithful. Although it is not always ideal and Edith doesn’t sleep through the night it is what works for us. She is only 9 months, she nurses frequently and we aren’t actively weaning. Lastly we like bed-sharing, just not all night,but we do enjoy it.
That being said our current routine is bed anywhere between 7:15pm-9pm (Edith is very clear about when she is ready to go), bedtime routine of quiet play, diaper change, sleep sack on and then we nurse in bed. After this Edith is generally up 1-2 hours after we put her to bed, she nurses and then if she is up again before 2 hours has passed Neil takes a turn at soothing. She is usually up again between 12:30-3am to nurse and then again between 3:30-5am. Neil and I have decided that if 30 minutes have passed and there is no getting her back down in her crib she comes to bed otherwise she usually comes to bed around 5am. This is for our own sanity, sleep and so we can have some baby-free bed time.
What we have noticed since we stopped stressing about Edith’s sleep is that she sleeps better, sleeps longer in the morning and wakes up happier. I’m not sure if we will try another approach as she gets older but for now this is what works for us.
What is your approach to sleep?
Future post topics: Travel Sleep Situations, The Wonder Weeks of Hellish Sleep, Teething & Sleeping (or the lack of it), Sleep & Illness (Both child and parent)
We are in a similar place right now with how G is sleeping. On a good night anyway, he wakes 2-3 times and feeds twice. He is different though, in that bedsharing doesn’t help him sleep any better. It makes us all sleep worse. I wish it worked for us but it doesn’t 🙁
When we had our first baby we were all prepared with a cradle and a crib. Never used either one 🙂 Although she might have napped in the crib a couple of times. Cosleeping safely in our bed just felt so right, and so much less stressful than anything else, it just worked. I got the most sleep this way. Fast forward to baby #2, we’re still crib free and actually for the past 2 years we’ve had our queen mattress right on the floor and love it. It just feels safe, nobody falls off or gets bruises from the bed. With two kids we now put a twin mattress right next to our queen size and it works well! We love bedtime, it’s special to us!
I am a total believer in the “what works for you” philosophy of sleep. I appreciate that you also highlighted that it’s important that the solution work for mom and dad too – not just baby! What worked for us was breaking the habit of Hazel falling asleep nursing. Truly, once she was able to go to bed on her own (at about 4 months), everything clicked for us. Now she goes in her crib at about 7 PM totally awake and puts herself to sleep after a few minutes of babbling. She had been waking up once at about 4 AM to nurse (and would be well rested enough that she wouldn’t always go back to sleep afterward). I was stressing about when we would cut out that feeding – and that week she just simply dropped it on her own and has never gone back. She finally started sleeping through the night consistently a month ago at about 9 months. Babies sleep through the night when both baby and parents are ready – and that should be the only important timeline.
Ferber took way longer for us to work. A few days of absolute hell and it did start to improve, but it wasn’t a miraculous transformation or anything. It probably took a couple weeks of doing it consistently before she fell asleep on her own with no issue. We did PU/PD first too, it didn’t work either, I didn’t count but it was triple digits the first and only night I tried!
I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but with my daughter I found she slept better when I increased the cut-offs for her feeds. If she’s eating every 2 hours she can’t be eating much at a time. By gradually increasing the length between feedings both at night and during the day I can tell she now eats more at once, like actual meals instead of snacks. It’s been great for us…so, just my two cents 🙂