Ferber: it's not a fluffy muppet after all.

This week we decided to try the Ferber method to get Mikayla to fall asleep on her own. Up until now we would give her a bottle at night and she'd have to fall asleep while eating, or we'd have to rock and pat her until she was totally asleep before we put her in her crib. If she wasn't completely passed out anything and everything would wake her up, and we'd have to start all over again. Lately it was getting really bad, literally it'd be 4 hours of repeating the cycle of eating and patting broke up with playtime if it just seemed like she wouldn't sleep. She'd eat way more than I know she needed, and both Jeremy and I would be exhausted by the time she was asleep. And with me working nights 4 nights a week, a lot of that Jeremy had to do on his own. During the days Mikayla would nap in her bouncer every single day. Considering she's already exceeded the weight limit on her bouncer, we knew something had to change.

The Ferber Method is basically first putting your baby into her crib awake, something we've never done. Then, if your baby starts to cry, you allow her to cry for a short period of time, then go in and comfort her. You don't pick her up, or feed her, but just loving words and patting/rubbing the back or tummy, getting her situated to sleep again, then leaving the room again. If your baby starts to cry again, you wait a slightly longer period of time before you go in, and each time after the time is stretched a little more until you reach the longest stretch your comfortable with, say 20 minutes, then each time after that is 20 minutes before checking in until the baby falls asleep. Ferber suggests starting by waiting 5 minutes before you go in and check on your baby. We waited a minute. Yes, one minute.

It's now day 3 and I would say it's going really well. The first night was horrible. Mikayla was up from 8pm-1:30am. Listening to her cry is the worst feeling in the world. I've cried a lot the last couple nights. Jeremy and I have had to keep reminding ourselves that this will be good for Mikayla, she needs to be able to sleep on her own, we need to not have to spend hours and hours putting her to bed. The second night, it took 2 hours to get her to sleep. Last night, an hour and a half. She isn't constantly crying, most of the time is playing in her crib or just kind of whining, but there are moments where she's all out crying and it kills me.

I've been doing the Ferber method for her naps during the day as well - no more bouncer! Those have been going really well. Her nap this morning took about 30 minutes before she fell asleep. This afternoon she cried for literally 30 seconds, played for about 15 minutes, and is now fast asleep. It's blissful.

When I first read about the Ferber method a few months ago I didn't even want to try it. Letting my baby cry? Forget it. I think I wasn't ready then (and actually Ferber doesn't recommend sleep training until a baby is at least 6 months old anyways). But now that Mikayla is older I can tell the difference between her cries: when she's tired, or hungry, or in pain. I know that there are times now that she cries just for the sake of it instead of before when she needed something. I'll never feel comfortable letting her cry, but I can stomach it a little easier now.

We're still early on in the process but it seems to have made a huge improvement. It's been hard, really hard, and emotionally draining - we've felt horrible, we've felt sad, but now that it's working, we're feeling relieved. I'm looking forward to the time when we can put our little munchkin in her crib and have her go straight to sleep. Dare to dream! :)