We did what Ms. Tweedlemom mentioned in the previous post; everyone is happy when baby sleeps with mom and dad. This was without a doubt true; in the beginning. I also admit that we did it for selfish reasons. I mean, who wants to get up 5-10 times at night, walk all the way over to the nursery in half zombie-like state, get the baby (who by the way has completely woke himself up now from crying), feed him, try to put him back down which will take another hour, and do this all over again in another hour ?
So we practiced the controversial family bed for 3 reasons:
1. It's only natural for newborns to sleep with mommy. (I still don't get why it's controversial)
2. Buddy was a very colicky baby. Which I will share in my next post.
3. It was more convenient for feeding because I was just too tired to get up.
Within this time of co-sleeping, I was advised by many people (and hundreds of online resources) that he should self sooth himself to sleep by 3 months. With colic, that was darn near impossible. But at the 3 month mark, I gave the Ferber method a try. I let him cry.
What is Ferberizing?
(No, you are not Febreezing your baby with air fresher, I've been asked this funny enough!). The Ferber method is termed by Dr. Ferber and you can read all about here: http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-ferber-method-demystified_7755.bc
Did this work for us at that time? No.
So we continued with our original school of thought. The Dr. Sears method of co-sleeping which you can read about here: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp
We continued co-sleeping because:
a) Mr. Hubsters was a softy
b) I wasn't really at that point to let Buddy go either no matter how sleep deprived I was
c) We didn't want to hear him cry for hours because it broke our hearts and was equally annoying to hear
We continued the co-sleeping thing until he was 7-8 months before trying again to put him in his own room. After conversations with other friends who tried Ferberizing (with the stop-watch and all) and had 100% success with it, I was determined to give it another try. At this point, I was still getting up 4-5 times a night which made me really crabby in the morning and throughout the day! Everyone will be happy if mommy's happy.
So we tried Ferber again. Did it work? No. Buddy was crying for so long that he fell asleep standing up. We have a video monitor in his room, so we took a picture of it. You can see him in the corner.
So, we continued the co-sleeping. Christmas time comes. I really needed sleep. We (or rather I) was determined to try again. But then the family got the flu! We were all sick on and off for a whole month, so we waited, AGAIN.
His first birthday arrives. I gave Mr. Hubsters an ultimatum. "THAT'S IT! He's old enough now! If I don't get sleep, I'm going to drown myself while taking a bath." So we tried once again and stuck to our guns. No visits past midnight until 8 am. Of course he cried. We have more pictures. But this only lasted a few days. So I can proudly say that he is now sleeping from 9:30 pm all the way up until 8am without getting up! And it's been 3 weeks and counting.
Why the Ferber thing didn't work for us in the beginning:
- we weren't 100% wholehearted into it
- we weren't consistent in the method
- we believed he wasn't really ready
- his little room was just so far away from us
How come it worked later?
- well, we didn't really follow the Ferber method. It states to go in every 15 minutes, then 10, then 5, over a period of time. By doing this, it only confused him and made him more angry. We just stopped the visitations altogether.
- we believed he grew out of it
Are you harming and not loving your baby by letting him cry?
- let's put it this way, having a happy mommy is better than having an all day disgruntled mommy.
Moral of story:
- take the information you have researched, and do what you want with it, at your own time.
- don't feel that you must meet every expectation with your baby's stages of development
- do what is right for you
- don't stress
- stop listening to people's stories
- stop listening to what other people are telling you what you should be doing
- (I did opposite of all the above)
Happy sleeping!
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1 comment:
That's awesome!
Our lazy method to get the boy out of our bed was to get him out of the crib as soon as he could walk and into his on bed. It was his choice where he wanted to sleep and either way we didn't have to get up. He mostly stayed in his own bed. Maybe he just was happy knowing where we were and that we were accessible.
(Of course we had a locking gate at the top of the stairs!)
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