Sleep Training, Cry It Out, and Other Thoughts
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I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this before, but it’s been on my mind because a friend and I have been discussing: What has been your approach to helping your baby learn to sleep? If you followed a program or method, what did you try and how did you like it? If you’ve done different approaches with different children, how did you pick?
For my own $.02, when my eldest was born there was a lot in the media about “cry it out” routines, including a book that encouraged parents to start at about nine weeks. J was older than that, but not by much when we tried it one evening. We put him in his crib at the appropriate time, after the usual nighttime routine, and then left the room.
He screamed at the top of his lungs for HOURS.
You could not PAY me to scream this hard, or this long.
My husband and I were both horrified and shell-shocked (and we STILL ended up going in there that night, and nothing ever came of it).
He’s turned out OK for now (at least, he hasn’t stabbed us in our sleep yet) and obviously has no memory of this fateful evening, but wow.
{related: what crazy things have you tried to get your kid to sleep?}
After that, we only stuck with gentler routines for both boys, which involved a lot of back-rubbing and white noise machines and blackout shades… When they were the most sleep deprived and refused to nap we would take them on long walks in their stroller, or on aimless drives in their car seat. In fact, in my opinion, consistent and good quality naps were the biggest factor on how well the nighttime sleep went.
Which isn’t to say that the boys’ sleep was always great — both have had looong struggles with it, and I can’t tell you how many “sleep diaries” I’ve started on my iPhone. I’d say everything got a lot better for both boys around age 5, but ohhhhh… it was a long road.
{related: how to deal with sleep deprivation as a working mom}
Readers, how about you — did you try a specific method for sleep training? Who are your favorite authors or other resources on this subject?
Psst: Stay tuned for a roundup of some of our favorite sleep-related products for babies, toddlers and kids!
Stock photo via Stencil.
Ferber all the way. Although I do it later (closer to 9-12 months). If we had a third I’d do it at 6 months. It works like a charm for us and both our kids sleep 12hrs straight every night. They are 2.5 and 5. They were not good sleepers before Ferber. We occasionally had to “retrain” after travel or illness. I became a better mother/wife and MUCH happier after getting consistent sleep.
I invented a sleep-training method based on my lifelong battle with insomnia. 90% luck, 10% insomnia method – kiddo slept through the night at six weeks.
We did CIO very early with both kids; nothing fancy, just put them down and walk out. Tried with Kid 1 at 9 weeks; failed and tried again at 12 weeks; he slept through the night fully by like 14 weeks. Kid 2 – Did it around 12 weeks. 5 rough nights, then slept through the night. We prioritized family sleep and it worked great for us! Anyone struggling with this – look up Tribeca Pediatrics Sleep Training. Absolutely improved our lives for the better.
I was reluctant to sleep train when the doctor gave the OK to try (around 12 weeks) because my kiddo was so small (barely on the growth chart, though doctor did not have concerns about her growth rate) that I felt that if she was waking up at night to eat, I wanted to go with that. Close to 6 months, I realized she was not really taking in any milk at night and really seemed to want to snuggle, so after that, we let her fuss for 2-3 nights for her nighttime wakeup, and she was basically sleeping through the night after that. And the fuss was crying just for a few minutes. She has more or less slept through the night consistently ever since. (She’s nearly 7 now.)
I think it is a good idea to get familiar with all the methods and then use your intuition on what to try first for your baby based on the baby’s needs and personality. Baby 411 used to have a chart of some of the more popular sleep training books. The chart summarized the general sleep training approach used by the book and also the author’s credentials, so that chart can help to decide which book to start with. Some babies need hardcore Weissbluth CIO, others will sleep just fine with more gentle and gradual approaches. My perspective would be to choose the most gentle method that is likely to work for your baby (if you have a Weissbluth baby, you know you have a Weissbluth baby). It is somewhat of an art to experiment and find what is going to work best for your family, especially when you throw illnesses, traveling, and schedule changes into the mix.
A good sleep training consultant can also be great to get a personalized plan that really works for you, if you have access to a good consultant.
Sleep was very important to me, so a lot of reading led to this path:
Snoo -> Dr. Karp Book -> Three Day Sleep Solution -> Weissbluth Book = Champion Sleeper
Trying for #2 so hopefully we can come close to replicating our success.
We got really lucky with our son in that he didn’t need much sleep training early on. We did 12 hours by 12 weeks, loosely which didn’t involve crying or anything, just making sure he’s stuffed during the day. He was sleeping 12 hours straight by 13 weeks or so on his own. Never had the 4 month regression.
However, starting at 1 year, he started having regressions almost monthly (almost always related to separation anxiety). We always do cry it out and it usually passes within 2-3 days (other than the 2.5 year regression which lasted a record 2.5 weeks and was torture).
Sleep was really really important to me! I knew I couldn’t go back work (after 16 weeks leave) and not be sleeping. I started Taking Cara Babies at 4 weeks, she was sleeping 12 hours by 12 weeks and is now an AWESOME sleeper at 14 months. Her self-soothing / sleeping skills helped us so much with a trip to Switzerland to visit family last fall. She dealt with jet lag like a champ, napped in her stroller, etc etc. I highly the Will I Ever Sleep Again program!