Sleeping babies

[kallistii]

Well, I was bouncing around at bOINGbOING, the web edition. and saw an article about getting babies to sleep regulary. It's called ferberizing your baby. Here is the definition:

"Question: What does it mean to "Ferberize" your baby?

Answer: Ferberizing means allowing your baby to cry for longer and longer periods of time each night before you briefly go check on her. At that point, you reassure her with your voice but don't pick her up, rock her, or feed her to calm her down. After about one week, a successfully "Ferberized" baby falls asleep by herself and soothes herself back to sleep if she wakes up during the night. She also can go to sleep on her own for daytime naps. "

Of course, those dealing with said may have already have heard about this, used or abandoned it..but, hey, I try and help where I can...

ttyl

Comments

[popelaksmi.livejournal.com]

The most recent thing I heard about "Ferberized" babies is that it may work in the short term but rarely does ni the long run. Babies reach developement peaks and change and this affects their sleeping habits. As a result, most parents of "Ferberized" babies have to start from "scratch" about the common peaks points, 4 months, 8-9 months, 12-13 months etc. etc.

Another option...

[perlgirlju.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ferberizing is an option, so is co-sleeping. Slightly biased article here (http://www.breastfeeding.com/reading_room/co_slepping.html). Just to give voice to the "other side", so to speak...

[kattale.livejournal.com]

And according to the nurse at the Early Years Centre, most of the time it just doesn't work. My girls are capable of crying for 2 hours or more if they want to nurse at night. If they don't want to nurse, they wake up, gurble a bit, maybe one or two wails, and they soothe themselves back to sleep. They've never needed help to fall asleep - they just get hungry in the night.

We're up to 2 full nights sleep for Keilidh, and 5 for Kiara now. I'm so proud! (It's after 9:30, and they're still sleeping...)

Like popelaksmi said, it's come in stages. They slept through the night last Christmas, started waking 5 or 6 times each during the cold part of winter, slept through the night from June through to August, then spent the fall waking once to nurse (not always at the same time) after a long nasty cold. But i think we've got it.

Letting them cry it out (i've tried it a few times) is just an excercise of frustration for everyone involved, including the parent who lies awake the whole time feeling shitty.

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

This wasn't something I ever considered with my kids, since it doesn't fit at all with my philosophy of childrearing. Besides, as someone else mentioned, if they wake up at night, it's usually for a reason (they're hungry, they're wet, they're cold), and they need to trust that you will take care of these things for them.

But I never generalize about kids--there's no one thing that works with all of them. I don't know if it would have worked with mine but it wasn't something I would have been willing to do.

[ravenlaughing.livejournal.com]

exactly. my friend was telling me just the other night about her ex having this kind of thing done to him as a child, and he's in therapy for being unemotional, unable to deal with interruptions, being unable to physically express affection, etc. There's a reason they did those studies that showed how the ignored baby monkey grew up dysfunctional.