When will my kid stop fighting sleep? and Ferber ?

[Deleted]

She will be 4 months on Saturday. Just give me an exact age, please! haha, yeah right.

I am off this week and have her home with me. Yesterday it took me more than 3 hours to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep. 2 times she woke up as soon as I put her down...fell asleep by the third hour of fussing/crying but only slept for 30 mins. Then was fussing again. Popped her in the Ergo and that lasted a whopping 10 minutes before she started fussing again. By the time DH came home I was starving and at my wit's end.

This morning she woke up at 7:30, nursing, played, nursed some more at 9 and began fussing. After using every trick in the book, she fell asleep and woke up as soon as I put her down (I waited a while to make sure she was really sleeping). Then continued to fuss/cry/fight until 10:50 and slept 30 minutes.

None of this would be an issue if she was pleasant but she's not. She's very cranky and obviously tired.

WHEN WILL IT END? I am losing my mind. I want to Ferber sooooo bad right now. Bad mommy, I know. (and I know she's too young to Ferber...but it will happen. I promise you).

Ferber question - how do you know when your kid is ready to sleep train?

[jenjen]

I thought you could start Ferber at 4 months?

DS was a terrible sleeper. He napped great but would wake up a million times at night. I downloaded the "SleepEasy solution" to my nook last week and read the important chapters and started sleep training the next night. I think it's similar to Ferber with night routines, laying the baby down awake, and checkins. The book recommends not touching the baby during checkins but I do pat him or flip him back to his back if needed.

Night 2 was the worst night of my life but night 4 and 5 (last night) were awesome! He did not peep when I laid him down, he put himself back to sleep the 1 time I heard him fuss and he slept until I woke him up 11.5 hrs later! It was amazing.

I know how much it sucks to have a poor sleeper!

[dcrunnergirl]

This sounds like the 4-month wakeful period. Sorry, I know how much it sucks.

Ours lasted about 3-4 weeks before they really a bit better. They were then good for about a month and then got bad again and they were up 15-20x per night when they hit the 6-month growth spurt. That lasted about 2 weeks. Around 6.5 months, things got much, much better and then at 8 months, they started STTN for 10-12 hours with no wake-ups.

[satsuma]

We're looking to do some sleep training with our 7 month old because he will not sleep unless he's being held or I'm lying right next to him and then wants to nurse all night long. However, I do think sleep is better now than at 4 months old if only because he falls asleep easily even if it's not under the ideal circumstances. I just remember sleep at 4 months sucking. Hard. Have you read Ferber's book? It is really informative.

[satsuma]

Jan 3, 2013 12:19:51 GMT -5 jenjen said:

I thought you could start Ferber at 4 months?

Ferber says you can start between 4-6 months.

[Deleted]

I ordered the book on Monday. Should be here tomorrow.

[biscoffcookies]

Jan 3, 2013 12:26:32 GMT -5 satsuma said:

Jan 3, 2013 12:19:51 GMT -5 jenjen said:

I thought you could start Ferber at 4 months?

Ferber says you can start between 4-6 months.

I don't think that there is any one universal right time to Ferberize -- I really think that it has to do with your baby's personality. I absolutely believe that there are some babies out there who can be sleep trained at 4 months. I envy the parents of those children. But we tried with DD at 4 months, and it was a flipping disaster.

We called it quits after a week and tried again closer to 6 months. It still was so hard, but we saw improvement night-to-night, whereas before, there had not been much progress at all in terms of length or intensity of crying over the course of the week.

Hopefully your baby will be more cooperative. But if after awhile you feel in your gut it isn't working, it is okay to put it on hold and try again later.

Also, be aware the Ferber book presents an overly rosy picture of how sleep training progress goes. It's like, "on the first night she cried 45 minutes, on the second night she cried 15, on the third night she cried 5, and ever since then she has gone down without a peep!"

Our DD did NOT progress that fast even when we tried it at 6 months, and it caused me a lot of stress thinking that we were doing something wrong/it wasn't working. It took us closer to 2 weeks before DD would regularly go to sleep with little/no crying, and even then we had nights when she'd cry/fuss for 10-15 minutes somewhat regularly.

[auntie]

Meh.

I did Ferber at 4 1/2 months. He carried on the first night for about 40 minutes, the second nght for 10 and hasn't since.

[Deleted]

Jan 3, 2013 13:52:33 GMT -5 auntie said:

Meh.

I did Ferber at 4 1/2 months. He carried on the first night for about 40 minutes, the second nght for 10 and hasn't since.

What made you feel comfortable trying it at 4.5 months? Desperation or was there some secret sign he gave you that you knew he was ready?