Babywise is a horrible book and should be banned from the shelves. The feeding schedule advocated by Ezzo can lead to all kinds of serious problems in infants. Do NOT use it.
All I can say is that it worked for my three kids, and my seven nieces and nephews. None of them had a failure to thrive, and they all slept through the night starting at about 2-3 months and never regressed, with the exception of an occasional bout of cold or sickness. I’m sure you can find critics of any proposed method of trying to get your kid to sleep. But I speak from personal experience.
If it worked for you without consequences then you were lucky. But his books advocates bad practices that have been demonstrated to cause undeniable harm to babies.
The Ezzos are right wing religious fanatics who advocate cruely outdated parenting practices. Their books should are self published and should not be on the shelves.
Our pediatrician advised us to bring both our children into our bed when they were that age. It worked wonderfully. Our son had some serious breathing problems, so having him right there with us meant that we could administer albuterol immediately if he needed it. Our daughter breastfed until 14 months, and having her nearby, especially at 5 months, was a lifesaver. Now my 4.5 year-old son and my 15-month old daughter sleep on their own in their beds all night.
I would strongly recommend co-sleeping. Then again, I’m just some stranger on a message board. Whatever you do, if something someone suggests goes against your grain, don’t do it. If it works for you and your family, do it.
Whatever you decide, don’t feel guilty. Co-sleeping isn’t for everyone, but it can be a great sleep saver. And if someone tells you, “Oh, you’re not trying hard enough,” they really need to mind their own business. Like you, we tried crying it out. Three hours a night for two weeks and our son still didn’t manage to soothe himself to sleep, though he did manage to work himself up so much that he vomited. I still remember burying my head in a pillow and crying because it hurt to hear him cry like that, especially for so long. It just wasn’t worth it for any of us.
I don’t think it’s luck. Regardless of the author’s religious beliefs, which IMHO are not relevant, the system described in the books has worked for a lot of people and done a lot of good.
Thanks, everyone.
It’s definitely not colic or reflux. He’s not generally fussy, and I can literally count on one hand the number of times he’s spit up. The only reason he’s crying is because he wants to sleep and can’t do that by himself in his crib. Once he naps (which he can do with ease in our arms), he’s fine until he’s tired again.
We have an Ergo carrier, not a sling, but he loves it and sleeps really well in it. The only problem is that, again, we’re not teaching him how to sleep on his own. Well, that, and the fact that he weighs almost 20 pounds, which gets heavy pretty quickly, no matter what kind of carrier you use.
It might be teething, I guess. If so, though, this is the only symptom. His gums look normal, as far as I can tell. He’s been chewing and drooling a lot, but that’s been happening for a month or two now. I’m fine with giving him Tylenol if he needs it; I just don’t know if he needs it.
We actually did try co-sleeping for a while, after a fashion. We started him in the bassinet next to our bed, and when we moved him into the crib, I slept next to him on the floor. *He *slept fine; I couldn’t get a wink. I woke up with every little sound and movement he made, and was paranoid about moving myself, for fear of waking him. We might try it again if nothing else works - and I know plenty of people who swear by it - but it may just not be for me.
In any case, I just got an update that he had two naps this morning, 40 minutes and an hour, respectively, and apparently was able to actually fall asleep in the crib. I’ll find out more when I get home. It could be progress, or he could be just totally zonked from last night. Either way, I’m thrilled that he got some rest.
Poor little bunny.
And as for Babywise, I’ll just say that it’s not for us, and leave it at that. We have been reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It’s Ferber-esque; he actually discusses several methods (including hardcore “let them cry”, graduated reduction in comforting, and even always comforting right away), but clearly seems to prefer letting them cry - 1 hour for naps and unlimited at night. He also has a recommended nap schedule, but suggests flexibility.
We’re just taking it all with a grain of salt, and basically trying to do whatever we can to get out of the kid’s way and let him sleep.
Sleep, bunny. Sleep.
Best wishes on finding the right combination on getting your little one to sleep. WRT to the above quote, do you think he realizes that you’re down on the floor next to his crib and that gave him more comfort to sleep? As for me, that couldn’t work.
Good luck to you. I know how much this part sucks, especially when you’re trying to work, too.
It does get easier (of course, when sleep gets easier you have different problems). Part of the problem is that baby sleep habits can change literally overnight. You keep trying and trying what used to work and it just doesn’t. That was the worst part for me.
At first I was really scared I’d squish my son when he came to bed with us. Then I just got used to having him tucked into the crook of my arm. By the time we had our daughter, letting her cry just wasn’t a consideration. One benefit I’ve had is that my husband supported me whatever I chose to do, and if you do try co-sleeping, you definitely have to have your spouse’s support.
Whatever you decide to do, you’ll work through it. Like I said, ignore advice that doesn’t work. And if what you’re doing stops working, try something else.
One of my friends had a similar problem. IIRC, the solution ended up being more frequent, shorter naps for a while. The majority of the problem seemed to be that the baby was getting too tired/overwound to go to sleep.
It was one of those weird “I’m going to completely change in the course of one day” episodes. It took a while to figure out what would work. Then of course that only worked for a few weeks, until the next time she decided to completely throw her parents for a loop.
I would worry about surviving the next six weeks than long-term teaching her to sleep by herself. She’s only five months, and the long-term consequences of living with perpetually barely-functional, cranky parents seem worse than the long term consequences of having to teach her to sleep by herself when she’s 8 or 10 months old.
Yes, chewing and drooling mean teething. As I recall these are the classic symptoms, and he’s about the right age.
Since you’re not opposed to it, maybe try the tylenol at just a half dose and see if it helps.
I have this book and 75% love it. The other 25% were the parts that Little One clearly didn’t read, or perhaps did read and disagreed with 
So you are wise to take it all with a grain of salt.
The Little One went through this period at 4-5 months. I often resorted to holding her on the floor before naps so that when she did drop off to sleep I could lay her on the floor with minimal moving around (the drop to crib level seemed to be part of what would wake her up).
Also, this sounds crazy, but we had excellent luck with a modified technique from Baby Whisperer (which I 90% hated, but this 10% made up for it), where we would hold her until she was almost asleep, put her in her crib – she’d wake up immediately – hold her again until she was almost asleep, put her in her crib again, pick her up when she woke up, rinse and repeat until she actually did sleep. After a (very long) week of this, she could go to sleep in her crib by herself. Or, possibly, she was just at the end of This Bad SLeep Period. Who knows?
It was 6 1/2 months before we were able to do any sort of night-time training. Before that when she cried at night she always wanted either food or a diaper change. I know Weissbluth says you can start at 3 months, but all I can say is, he didn’t have my baby. (See grain of salt, above.)
The system described in the book is dangerous and has serious potential medical consequences even if you refuse to admit it. A responsible parent should not practice cry it out on an infant that young. Their methods are completely indefensible. A baby needs to eat when the baby needs to eat and not on some idiotic punitive made up schedule that is not grounded in fact and may lead to life threatening dehydration. They also advocate methods like “blanket training” where you sit the poor baby on a blanket and then hit it when it strays from the blanket. That’s disgusting.
FYI, my heart goes out to the OP. When my daughter was two months old she’d slept what seemed to be about fifteen minutes. My husband walked through the door that afternoon and I solemnly announced that we had to give her up for adoption or I would lose my sanity. He took her, I got a few hours of sleep and it was okay.
I also second the recommendation of a family bed. You may also want to look into a side car sleeper. The sleeper goes next to the bed and allows the baby to sleep next to you in a safe place as you breastfeed during the night. I am currently pregnant. I nursed my daughter for two years and found the side car very helpful.
I totally feel for you. We went through the same thing with our little one right around the same age.
What worked for us was a combination of things. We made sure she was full before going down to bed. We started her on cereal around 4 months and other solids not long after. All along with regular breastfeeding. The heavier solids made it easier though for her to keep her belly full for longer periods of time. For a good long time (maybe a month or so) she would only sleep well in her swing or in bed with us.
Have you checked with a pediatrician for some advice?
The method that my wife and I have used (from the Babywise book) is and was not dangerous to our children. It may not be for you, great. Have you even read the book?
Just because something worked for you does not mean it is okay or not dangerous. Please present a source (other than your own personal experience) that refutes what I’ve pulled up from medical authories about the dangers of the Babywise book. Ezzo is an ideologue with no scientific background who advocates feeding methods that can easily be harm babies. People get away with not using seatbelts all the time, too. That hardly means we should forgo them because someone else managed just fine without one.
Here’s (warning pdf!) another one from a doctor to bolster what I’ve written. Their methods are contrary to the recommendations of the AAP, WHO and every single breastfeeding advocacy organization.
Oh and yes I have a copy somewhere in the house. What makes you think I haven’t read the book?
I have twins (and another older child), and this worked for me.
When it is bed time, feed the babies, change the babies, give them a hug, swaddle them and put them in bed.
Don’t get them out of bed until enough time has passed for them to be hungry again, no matter how much they cry. (Buy a video baby monitor and turn off the sound, if you are worried about them having some kind of real problem besides just wanting you there).
It doesn’t take very many nights of that before they simply go to sleep in their crib, and pretty much right away when you put them there.
It does get better… really… though it can take a while and it seems like FOREVER. I distinctly remember, when Dweezil was a month or so old, KNOWING that I had ruined THREE lives (his, mine, and my husband’s) by insisting on having a child. I didn’t have PPD, I was just frighteningly sleep deprived. From everything I’ve heard from other parents, my son had the WORST sleep patterns of any baby of their or my acquaintance.
My son would sleep under two circumstances: When he was nursing… and when he was being driven around in the car. The minute I’d try to put him down in his crib, he’d wake up and start to scream.
I tried having Typo Knig take him to another part of the house for an hour so I could sleep… and within a half hour, he brought the baby back because he couldn’t deal with the nonstop screaming.
We heard of a book called “Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems” by Ferber - the source of the infamous term “Ferberizing” which no loving parent would ever do (hah!). In desperation, I Ferbized Dweezil at 11 or 12 weeks.
Night one, the poor kid screamed for something like 2 hours. Then he slept for 4 hours. He woke up, I fed him, I put him back down… and he slept for another 4 hours. Night two, he screamed for maybe 45 minutes, slept 4 hours, got fed, slept another 4 hours.
Within a week, he went 6 hours in a row. I woke up in a blind panic after 5 hours or so, certain he’d died… checked on him and he was sleeping soundly.
Within a week after that he went 8 hours.
The child’s mood improved DRAMATICALLY. The poor kid was just exhausted all the time. He didn’t know how to sleep on his own, which made him tired, which made him cranky and made it that much harder to fall asleep. Life… was much better.
When he started daycare at 4.5 months, the daycare provider (a home-based daycare) let him cry it out a bit and then he learned to nap (something I’d never been able to get him to do). Again, his mood improved.
In hindsight, the sleep issues were (in our case) at least partly related to his autism.
I won’t say this was all a perfectly happy ending. About the time he turned 1, he started back with multiple nighttime wakings. Again, nightmarish exhaustion set in, if not quite as bad as before. He would usually get back to sleep relatively early (though the night terrors were awful). We lived in terror of his getting out of his crib - something he didn’t manage until nearly 28 months old. So at that point we had to replace it with a toddler bed.
First night with the toddler bed, he kept trying to exit the bedroom (as we expected). We kept telling him he needed to go to sleep, but nope - with nothing confining him, he wanted to PAR-TAY. We finally resorted to holding the door shut, which completely sucked… but he calmed down. An hour later we went in to check on him and the poor kid was sitting there, woebegone, quiet but awake. He saw us and burst into sobs. :(. We comforted him, and tucked him in again…
…and he never had nighttime sleep problems again except when we traveled - he was horrible on trips. If he got up, he’d be in a hotel room with us and would start to bounce around. Once he had a night terror when we were in a hotel. We had to take him out of the hotel and drive him around in the car. I remember telling the front desk clerk - as we carried him, screaming, outside, that “if you’re getting reports of a murder being committed on the 4th floor, this is the culprit”.
Moon Unit was worse, in her own way - she wasn’t as bad as an infant, but Ferberizing never really got her sleeping through the night and she didn’t routinely do so until she was something like 5 years old. She still sometimes has issues at night but at age 13 now, she doesn’t ruin our sleep.
It does, unless it doesn’t. Some kids are just chewy and drooly. My son didn’t have a dry chin until he was 2…and now at 18 still drools when he’s sleeping!
There is no one size fits all approach. You have to what seems to work for you and your family. I’m basically a lazy, laid-back person who takes the path of least resistance- thankfully this has actually worked out with irishbaby, who has a sweet, contented nature.
We co-slept until irishbaby was 3 months- mostly because I was breastfeeding, brought her into bed from her Moses’ basket for the 2am feed and
promptly fell asleep myself. When she was down to 1 feed between midnight and 6am I moved her into her own cot in her room- mainly because irishfella and I wanted our bed back.
That worked perfectly although she needed about 30minutes of rocking and patting and cuddling to get to sleep at the start of the night, although would pretty much sleep as soon as she started feeding during. Then, at the same age as your little one, there were a rocky couple of weeks when she was waking during the night every couple of hours.
It was not fun, but I figured out sleeping in a chair with a baby in my arms or bringing her into our bed was preferable to being woken every hour by a screaming baby and certainly led to more sleep for me, which, really, was all I cared about at the time.
Then she seemed to settle through the night, but decided 5am was the best time to wake up- I just brought her into our bed for a feed and we all slept together until 7am. Anything for an easy life.
That passed by about 8 months, and she went back to sleeping in her cot from 7:30pm to 7am.
I’m not really sure what changed, but there wasn’t any Ferberisation or structured crying or anything, we just sort of cut down the comforting and settling organically, as she got better at self soothing.
My personal feeling is that this bad patch between 5 and 8 months coincided with the introduction of solid foods and my return to work, and that the bad sleeping and need to be held was a combination of hunger, growing, getting used to digesting something other than breast-milk and re-assurance that her mummy was still there.
Lest you think we’re stuck in the co-sleeping thing, I can reassure you that I now have a 19month old who runs happily into her room and lies on her rug ready to be undressed at the mere mention of “bedtime”. Once in her PJs she shouts “cot” and lies down in it, hugging her monkey toy and singing along to her lullaby light show, before sleeping for 11 straight hours without a tear or a protest. The entire bedtime process takes about 5 minutes now.
In summary- the things I did when she was tiny are not the things I do now. I did what seemed like the best, easiest thing at the time, it worked while it worked, and we changed it up when it stopped working.
Don’t worry that the approach you take now is the approach you’re stuck in forever. Just because you decide to use a sling or co-sleep now doesn’t mean you can’t try controlled crying on down the road- do what works when it works as long as it keeps working and you’ll be fine.
And hold onto the fact that it will get better.