Ferberizing, and daytime naps

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a 4 1/2 month old that we had previously rocked to sleep in our arms every night, as well as every time he would wake up during the night. But lately he has been waking up the instant he hits the crib mattress, waking up numerous times during the night (to feed, or just be comforted), and not napping much during the day.

So, I finally convinced my wife to let me try a Ferber approach, and let him cry it out (it’s only been 2 days, and she agreed to give it 10…so…hopefully we’ll see improvement soon :slight_smile: ).

Anyhow, so we’ve been reading some advice that suggests a regular schedule, as well as regular naps. But he’s of a similar disposition regarding naps – i.e., he will nap in our arms, or in the stroller, or during a car-ride, but he’s not consistent with his naptimes, and he is very difficult to transfer to the crib once he’s down for a nap… So I’m wondering, should “cry it out” apply to the daytime naps as well? He’s a very active baby, and if left to his own devices, I have no doubt he could stay up all day laughing and eating and munching on teething devices (ok, he’d probably spend some of that time crying as well…). But he can be very hard to get down even during the day. If we don’t Ferberize him for his day naps, are we defeating the purpose of trying to get him to figure out how to get to sleep on his own at night? I’m sure some Dopers have tried Ferber, so I’m wondering if anyone out there had a similar problem with daytime naps…?

Also, how long did it take your baby to get the hang of going to sleep? I’ve heard everywhere from a couple days to a week, and all the books we’ve read agree that we should see a change in a short period of time.

–KidScruffy

*For those who haven’t heard the term: The Ferber Method

2

Well, I know it goes against a lot of advice, but my kid was hungry! That was a huge part of his sleeplessness. Once I started giving him some cereal mixed in his bottle (at around the same age as your little guy), he was sleeping better and able to amuse himself. Talk to the doctor and see if he/she is cool with that.

3

I can’t give you any Ferber-specific advice (we don’t do any sort of cry-it-out and minimal scheduling), but with both of my kids (4 & 18 months), I’ve found that they have had frequent night-wakings and changes in naptimes right before and during a growth spurt. After a couple weeks, things would work themselves back into a routine again.

Something I’ve had to remind myself as my kids go through baby and toddlerhood is that nothing is going to last forever. Just when you feel like you can’t stand one more sleepless night, you’ll have ten more and it’ll be over. My guess is that if your baby was sleeping okay before (with a few nightwakings…he’s still just a tiny infant, after all), he’s probably just going through a little readjustment and will settle back into his routine soon, whether you “Ferberize” him or not. Have you tried anything else to get him into a sleep routine…swaddling, bathing, nursing to sleep, etc.?

(sorry if this didn’t really answer your question…I just think you could probably get similar results with many different methods, including just waiting it out)

4

One more thought, if your main problem is that he’s waking after you’ve been rocking him to sleep…
My youngest was hospitalized several times as a baby. The second and third times were right around the same age as your son (4 months, then 5 months). The nurses in the hospital would roll up two towels and place them baby-body width in the cot, then cover that with a receiving blanket. They’d swaddle him up really tightly, then stick him in the little nest. Then, they’d pat him, hard and veeeerry slowly. That way, he was being laid down awake, but falling asleep in the position he was going to be in. He wasn’t being moved after he’d fallen asleep. This worked really well for us even after he stopped appreciating the swaddle…we eventually started just swaddling his feet, then just patting him. He’s a great sleeper now, except when he’s teething (:frazzled:).

5

Don’t give up yet. Do put him down for a morning nap and an afternoon nap, and continue the Ferber method during naps. It’s going to work if you keep at it, and it shouldn’t take very long at all.

Don’t listen to people that tell you it’s healthy or normal for a whole family to lose sleep for several months or even years, because a baby is born. A good night’s sleep is extremely valuable and important, especially if you work outside of the home and/or drive a lot. There’s no reason why you can’t have that, and your wife, too.

6

Mom of 3 little ones checking in here. I fell for that Ferber stuff for a short while.

Babies sleep when they need and want sleep, unless there is something wrong (like stinky diaper, hunger, gas, or general fussiness). IMHO, there is no way to sleep-train a child under a year old, and even then, it’s iffy. Babies tend to run on their own schedules, and not one that the parents establish.

If a baby stays up all day, playing and eating, he or she would probably sleep through the night better, but that’s no guarantee. Babies often go through stages where they want to be held, do not want to be held, eat every two hours, eat every four hours, not eat for 13 hours… anything to freak out the new parents.

All the books in the world don’t have a clue how to nurture your baby. Pay attention to the baby’s cues. If baby needs to be held, hold him. They aren’t that holdable for long.

7

Just goes to show, there are all different kinds of parenting styles.

I’m also a mom of 3, and I found that you can’t let the birth of a new baby interrupt the flow of your family and/or work for very long. Maybe my kids are weird (well, of course they are) but I found that every single one of them could establish a routine and fit quite nicely into our family lifestyle with relatively minor adjustments. YMMV, obviously.

8

4 and a half months is too young for Ferber. I believe he doesn’t recommend his program until at least 9 months - that’s a change in the newer editions. If I’ve got him confused with a different sleep guru - it still stands, he’s too young.
My best advice is to not put the baby down asleep, but to put him down not-quite-asleep.

9

My daughter is now 5 months old and (touch wood) she has no problems napping during the day and sleeping through at night (10pm to 6am). The trick we use (thanks to my mother) is to always put her down when she is tired, not after she has fallen asleep. That way, she got used to falling asleep on her own in her cot. Sometimes, she needs her pacifier to drift off, but she usually spits it out when she falls asleep.

IMHO, “crying it out” does not sound like the sort of thing to use with a baby as young as 4-5 months old. Just my $0.02

10

Alternatively, don’t think that just because this is what your baby is doing now, it’s what he’ll be doing for months and certainly not years. Trust that this will pass. 4.5 months is very young.

11

Once the night time sleep improves, that’s when I’d start to think about the daytime naps. Dweezil did not nap until he was 5+ months old, unless he was either nursing, or riding in the car (no, we never tried both simultaneously :)).

Re timing of Ferberization: We did this with Dweezil at 3 months old. His sleep was severely, frighteningly bad until then. I was lucky to get an hour of uninterrupted sleep at night and was beginning to frighten myself. Seriously. It was a horrible situation and we Ferberized him at 12 weeks out of desperation. First night, awful-then-good: he cried for 90 minutes the first round. Then he slept for 4 hours, which was pretty close to a record. Half hour of crying, then he slept another 4 hours. 8 hours in one night was earth-shattering.

Second night: he cried for something like a half-hour the first round, then only 10 minutes the second round.

Third night, hardly cried at all.

Within a week he’d gone 6 hours solid (I woke up just before that, panicked, and ran to his room to make sure he was breathing; doubtless this woke him). Within 2 weeks, he went 8 hours in a row. And life was very near tolerable and I was no longer scaring myself.

Is ferberizing for everyone? oh, hell no. Is it a good thing to do that young? Generally no but in our case, it was quite literally sanity-saving - I’ve never heard of anyone whose kid was such a bad sleeper (and hindsight, it was probably an early symptom of the autism).

Naps: It was the babysitter who got him napping during the daytime. I think she also let him cry for a few minutes.

Of interest: Dweezil’s daytime fussiness improved notably when we Ferberized him, and also improved when the sitter got him napping. From this we surmise he was exhausted, but would not let himself sleep. When we forced the issue, that nasty positive-feedback (tired, so cranky, so fuss, so don’t sleep, so get more tired) loop was broken.

12

I’m with Alice–he needs a routine and the expectation that he will nap. You need to plan around his naps, not the other way around. Mother of 3 here, all good nappers.

I did Ferberize my sons–but that was for night time. It took ONE night for one of them, 3 nights for the other. And yes, listening to the crying for an hour was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But after that, bliss–and a happier, rested baby.
For naps, IMO, you will need to clue into baby’s cues. Watch for the eye rubbing and the tired face. Bottle or breast, change the diaper, read him a story or sing a soft song and into the crib he goes. Rinse, repeat etc.

Good luck. I wish you well–and do think that it’s MORE important for him to get his nighttime sleep straightened out. He is very young and should respond fairly quickly to an imposed routine.

13

My only concern with this is that you say that some of the time your baby is waking up, he wants to eat. It is very normal for a 4-month-old to still need to wake once or twice a night for a feeding. I have a 3.5-month-old and he still wakes up for a midnight feed more often than not. Also, when the baby hits a growth spurt, he will want to eat much more frequently for a short period of time. I think it is not a good idea in this situation to simply let the baby cry in an effort to get him back to sleep, if he is genuinely hungry. I would at least try feeding him before laying him back down.

This is probably a dumb question, but have you tried a pacifier? Whatsit the Youngest (the previously-mentioned 3.5-month-old) will sleep on his own for naps, but only if we give him his pacifier. Otherwise he fusses and complains and refuses to sleep. The pacifier is seriously a sanity-saver.

14

I think ONE night time feed is still acceptable for a 4.5 month old. Two is pushing it. Three is playing. Go ahead and feed him, but do it in the dark and don’t make more than minimal eye contact. Even rocking while eating might be “playing” enough to make it too fun. Night time waking should be all business and more boring than staying quietly in your crib batting at the mobile.

We did a modified Ferber for our daughter, and her age is rough to express. She was born 4 months early and came home from the hospital two weeks before her due date. At the hospital, of course, she slept and grew pretty much the whole time, and she never cried. At home, she got strong enough to cry, and ten weeks after her due date (5 months after her birth), I decided it was sleep trainin’ time. Since she was SO young, and so conditioned to someone being right there every time she woke, I made the upper time limit something like 10 minutes of crying, and I started with 2 before soothing. So it was 2 minutes, soothe, 5 minutes soothe, 10 minutes and give it up for the night. The second night we never made it to the 10 minute mark, and she’s been sleeping the night through ever since.

I find, after years of mommyhood and babysitting and nannying, that children sleep BETTER at night if they’ve napped during the day. If they haven’t napped, they get overtired and while they’ll fall asleep, they’ll wake up unrefreshed halfway through the night. So yes, tire him out by playing with him lots while he’s awake during the day, but still insist he get a nap. And yes, Ferber the naps if you’re Ferbering at night.

“A nap”, for me, does not have to include sleep, by the way. It’s at least as important that *you *get a chance to rest. So all my charges know that they don’t have to sleep, but they do need to lay quietly and listen to some music. When the CD ends, they can get up. (9 times out of 10, they fall asleep anyway. But they don’t HAVE TO, which ends that battle.)

15

My daughter is now two. She was on an every 2 hour feeding schedule for the first 6 or so months. Because she was premature and underweight, it wasn’t a problem. It was also recommended we start giving her cereal at 3 months.

I’d like to echo what was said above about growth spurts. It seemed every time she hit a clothes size change marker (3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months) she would go on a feeding/sleeping jag. Either she’d eat like a horse, or not eat at all. Sleep like the dead, or not sleep at all. It seemed the growth spurts really threw her for a loop, but after about a week, she’d go back to normal. It weirded me out the first few times, now I roll with it. (She just turned two last week, didn’t eat worth a darn for a week, now she’s non-stop)

My best advice to you is to listen to your kid. That baby will sleep when it is tired, eat when it is hungry. When we started eliminating some of the nighttime feedings, she’d wake up fussy, we’d give her a few minutes and she’d settle herself back down. It is a valuable skill.

My daughter works best when she wakes up at 8am, plays in her crib for about an hour and a half, dozes back off, then wakes up for the rest of the day. I used to get her up at 8am, but she was fussy and cranky until she got her nap. Sometimes even now, she’ll take a short nap in the afternoon. But the kid can self-sooth.

A 4 month old is a BABY. Eating, pooping, crying machine. It can learn soon enough that the world doesn’t rush to their aid, why teach the kid that now? Be reasonable with your childs expectations. I can tell the difference between my kid being fussy and needing me.

Hell, I could use some cuddling myself, and I’m 40. I don’t wanna cry anything out at my age. (Although we did use that trick much later) But at 4 months? Wow. Ok, ok, i’m having a meltdown because my little, itsy bitsy baby is growing up so fast, I’d love for her to be forced to be held. :slight_smile: Soon, you won’t be able to hold them. I have to tickle, swing, wrestle my kid to get her to stay in my lap.

16

Just do whatever works for you and your baby. If you’re home during the day and it works for you, it might be helpful for you to purchase a sling or a bjorn so you can wear your baby while he naps. I had the same problem you did with our son and, during maternity leave and after I went to work and came home in the evening, I spent a lot of time just wearing him. Although you can’t do chores all that easily while wearing a sling, it’s at least easier on your arms (holding a baby for hours on end can get really old) and you can have somewhat of a break if he’s unconscious.

A lot of people argue that the whole point is to get a baby to sleep by itself and I agree that that’s definitely ideal, but if your baby strenuously disagrees no matter what you do, you might have to adjust your expectations for your own sanity.

For the record, we tried letting our little one cry it out. For three hours he shrieked. After a while, it felt too much like we were torturing him. We tried letting him cry for up to an hour and a half for two weeks, going in to pat him every 10-15 minutes, but he never stopped crying, so we realized that that was clearly not the right solution for him. Eventually he wore us down and slept with us for a few months. Now he’s 16 months, in his own bed and sleeps almost through the night (about 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.), then needs a little assistance conking out again until 6:30 or 7.

And I agree that it’s still perfectly normal for your little one to be hungry at night. We didn’t stop with the night feedings until about 6 or 7 months (he actually did manage to sleep through the night - for a period of about 2 months, then he got sick and has only slept all the way through the night four times since Christmas). Then he just stopped them himself.

I know this period where it relates to sleep sucks (the rest is awesome!), but it will pass when your little one matures. Just keep telling yourself that. And if you get “touched out” (used to happen all the time to me - I got really tired of having my baby attached to me all the time, even when he was asleep), if you can, get someone to come over and hold him for you, even if only for a little while. You need time for yourself, too.

Whatever you choose, don’t let other people tell you you’re doing something wrong. As long as you’re doing what feels right for you and what works for you and your baby, you’re doing a fabulous job.

17

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

He’s not nearly as enthralled with pacifiers as he was a month ago. He used to be able to suck on one, and when it fell out of his mouth I knew he was really asleep. Now, it’s rare that he’ll keep one in his mouth, although he does like holding it and playing with it.

He is eating 2-3 times during the night right now. A week ago, after he would eat, his mother or I would sometimes spend up to an hour rocking him back to sleep…and then have him wake up once he hits the mattress, and we repeat the process. On really bad nights, I would end up deciding that I’d rather just get up at 4am and be up for the day (I work days, so if I’m not up at 4am I’m up at 6:30) and hang out with the baby while my wife gets some sleep.

For the past couple of nights, after his nighttime feedings we let him get to sleep on his own…and at most, he cries for 5 or 10 minutes before he stops and begins to fall asleep. Of course, to get him down initially (around 7:30 or 8pm) takes between 25 minutes and an hour.

The interval we started with is 5, but I’m thinking of shortening it because in the evenings he will only settle down to sleep after being soothed. I.e., he cries for 5 minutes, gets soothed, cries for 10 minutes, gets soothed, cries for 15, gets soothed, and then when he gets put down again, he hardly cries at all before falling asleep. So I’m thinking the extremely long intervals aren’t all that helpful for us.

Also, some of the stuff I’ve read has said 4-5 months is the earliest to try sleep training, but I realize it is on the young side and he may not quite be ready for it. But so far we’re doing ok, and we’re going to give this a little while.

As for naps, since I work during the day I don’t feel like I’m very in tune with his daytime schedule – but my wife says he typically naps either in the carseat, stroller, or in her arms. I guess during the day the ‘where’ doesn’t matter so much as long as he’s napping?

18

“Where” isn’t important, as long as it works for her. If it’s stressing her out because she’d rather get dinner started or throw in a load of laundry or take a nap herself, then it’s a problem. If she’s happy for the extra snuggle time, it’s perfect.

19

Out pediatrician told us that 6 months was about the time they no longer need a night feeding (typically.) We did a no-frills cry-it-out with both of our kids at that point and they were sleeping from 10 to 5:30 or 6:00 after the first night.

20

I agree that the where during the day doesn’t matter, unless it’s interfering with the rest of the activities going on in the house. On Sunday afternoon, my husband was out with my older son. While I was standing at the sink doing the dishes, my youngest was lying on the floor playing with my toes. He totally zonked out and ended up taking his afternoon nap on the kitchen floor. Whatever.