A well-rested baby on a sleepy Daddy.Although Zoe has been a pretty good nighttime sleeper since she was about 6 weeks, her sleep patterns definitely started to shift around 4 months. She started resisting going to sleep more and waking up more in the nights. When she did wake up in the middle of the night it would often take about 2 hours to get her back to sleep, and I was even having to nurse her in the middle of the night even though I knew she wasn't actually hungry. Additionally, she needed to be rocked to sleep every night, which was taking its toll. It got to the point where we had to place her in the crib so carefully that the slightest wrong move woke her up and we had to start the process all over again. Jody and I were once again sleep deprived and Zoe was cranky because she wasn't getting the sleep she needed. So, last week we finally decided to try the whole cry it out method.
I bought book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" and we used the Ferber method. Basically, you let your baby cry for a certain number of minutes before going in to reassure the baby for 1-2 minutes without picking her up. You increase the amount of time you let her cry each time and each day. So last Friday Jody and I mentally prepared for an entire night of crying. We did our whole bedtime/feeding routine and placed Zoe in the crib sleepy. Then she just rolled over and slept until 7.30 am. Not a tear shed. Crazy. The next night we were hoping for the same, but no such luck. The waterworks started. It was so sad and felt totally unnatural not going in there to comfort her immediately. But, it only lasted 10 minutes (a very LONG 10 minutes, I must say) before she put herself to sleep. And again she slept until around 7.30 am. We've now had almost an entire week of this new system and it's going pretty well. I don't want to jinx it, but so far we haven't had any crying that lasts too much longer than 10-15 minutes. She's woken up a few times in the middle of the night, but just makes some noises and then gets herself back to sleep.
I had been so reluctant to try the cry it out method because I have such a hard time hearing Zoe cry. But, especially since we're still really struggling with naps, Zoe really needs that nighttime sleep.
Our next big challenge is tackling naps. We are still rocking her to sleep for naps and we still cannot get her to nap in her crib. The other day I actually had to hold her for an hour and a half so she would nap. My arm fell asleep and I eventually had to just wake her because I had enough. We may try crying it out for naps, but the book says it is best to do it once the nighttime sleep is all set. Plus, the book says that it often is much harder and less effective for naps. Does anyone else out there have any experience with doing cry it out for naps?
I bought book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" and we used the Ferber method. Basically, you let your baby cry for a certain number of minutes before going in to reassure the baby for 1-2 minutes without picking her up. You increase the amount of time you let her cry each time and each day. So last Friday Jody and I mentally prepared for an entire night of crying. We did our whole bedtime/feeding routine and placed Zoe in the crib sleepy. Then she just rolled over and slept until 7.30 am. Not a tear shed. Crazy. The next night we were hoping for the same, but no such luck. The waterworks started. It was so sad and felt totally unnatural not going in there to comfort her immediately. But, it only lasted 10 minutes (a very LONG 10 minutes, I must say) before she put herself to sleep. And again she slept until around 7.30 am. We've now had almost an entire week of this new system and it's going pretty well. I don't want to jinx it, but so far we haven't had any crying that lasts too much longer than 10-15 minutes. She's woken up a few times in the middle of the night, but just makes some noises and then gets herself back to sleep.
I had been so reluctant to try the cry it out method because I have such a hard time hearing Zoe cry. But, especially since we're still really struggling with naps, Zoe really needs that nighttime sleep.
Our next big challenge is tackling naps. We are still rocking her to sleep for naps and we still cannot get her to nap in her crib. The other day I actually had to hold her for an hour and a half so she would nap. My arm fell asleep and I eventually had to just wake her because I had enough. We may try crying it out for naps, but the book says it is best to do it once the nighttime sleep is all set. Plus, the book says that it often is much harder and less effective for naps. Does anyone else out there have any experience with doing cry it out for naps?
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Her hair is getting so long :) and curly!
We did something similiar...for naps it was much much harder... the way I finally got it to work is I would go in there every 1-2 min then every 5 unless he just started truly crying vs the fussy I don't like this cry.... i spent about a week doing it for 1-2 hours each day b/f he'd fall alsleep (then he'd sleep for less time than it took me to get him there!) but now.. it only takes about 10 mins for naps and sometimes right away with no repeat visits! We also still have our days were it take 45 min of me going in and giving him hugs but, he still usually goes down. I'd just be prepared for a week of a stressful couple of hours a day.. then it should get better. also for my sanity, I didn't let him cry / fuss as much as we did at night b/f going in b/c I also had a hard time with it :). Biggest thing was do not take them out of the crib; I read and found it to be true that if they got taken out of the crib you start all over on the time We would pat hug kiss but all while he was in crib... Oh... Also read and found to be true to limit your time in the room when you go in to less than 60 seconds (thats actually harder than it sounds when they are crying). Good luck!!! It is sooo worth it in the end... we used to have to rock endlessly also.
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