My sweet little Jonah boy L-O-V-E-S his Miracle Blanket swaddler, and so do I. I truly would not have survived his or Sophie’s babydom without it. BUT – small problem – he’s getting too big for it and was starting to be able to kick out of it at 5 months of age. (I know most people don’t swaddle their babies this long but hey, it was really working for us!) This was causing me to panic a bit because I also swaddled him for naps, and really I NEED him to nap and I NEED him to sleep at night. But alas, the Miracle Blanket has served us well, but it’s time for it to be retired. Jonah’s just too daggone BIG! Silly boy. Growing up and all.
This past week I started having a really hard time getting Jonah to nap because he was getting out of his swaddle so quickly. SO Bobby and I made the decision that it was time to take off the swaddle and take on the Ferber. The Ferber Method, that is.
Now, if you find the Ferber Method barbaric or cruel or whatever, please do not judge. I promise you I love the crap out of my kids and letting them cry for a wee bit for a couple nights while I check on them every few minutes is not going to send them to therapy. I’ve got lots of other parenting tricks up my sleeve for that one.
It totally worked with Joshua and it sort of worked with Sophie -we had to re-Ferber her a couple times, but she always came back to the way of the Ferber -and I was kind of in love with Dr. Ferber after we first Ferbered Joshua. Ahem. I mean, really! What a genius! So, I was ready to give it a go again.
So we put him down un-swaddled in his bed and let him cry, checking in on him and reassuring him at 3, 5, and 7 minute intervals.
He cried for 2.5 hours. We gave up.
The next night, we started over, checking on him at 5, 7, and 10 minute intervals. He fell asleep after an hour, but not for very long. Then, he cried for flipping ever again until we gave up about 1 am.
But Friday night we tried again, AND – he fell asleep in less than 5 minutes, slept til 3 am (went down at 10!) at which time I fed him, and he went right back down and slept til 6:30! On Saturday night – he gave almost an EXACT repeat performance!
Seriously I bet Dr. Ferber gets ALL the chicks!
I’m so proud of my big boy! And so happy to have him settling down to sleep in his own bed at night, even if it means he is growing up too fast.
Ferber rules! Luckily the thing my kid does well is sleep.
Oh, we totally Ferberize!
Well, at least I like Edna Ferber, Giant, So Big, etc. she was a really good writer.
UP
My sister swaddled her daughter until she was over a year old. But the kid sleeps like a champ (she’s almost 4) now.
He is so big!
Around here we just call it “cry-it-out”. Both my big girls slept great and continue to do so. Here’s to hoping it works with our newest addition!
Dr Ferber is my hero! Haha even though the cry it out method has been used foreverrrrr, I like the intervals that he uses. It helps ease my stress over hearing the baby cry and helps ease their stress and let’s them know I’m still there. We ferberized our oldest 2 each at about 6 months. They are 4 and 2 now and go to bed without any problems or fuss and sleep all night. 🙂 We just stopped swaddling our 6 month old and will soon ferberize him as well. For him though, his only sleep issue is that he needs to be breastfed to go to sleep. It’s nice for me to read about other moms using the Ferber Method. I’ve been on forums where the women are very mean to mothers who choose to let their babies cry it out.
Question: when you say that you gave up, does that mean that you swaddled him? What did you do in order for him to go back to sleep? Thinking of weaning my litle one from the swaddle, as she ends up with 1 or more arms out (3 months) but, I thought I’d try leaving one arm out at first. She doesn’t yet have great hand control, though, so I hope she doesn’t wake herself with her startle reflex. Does the Ferber method have an age recommendation? Thanks!
Holly, yes – we gave up and swaddled him. Ferber recommends no earlier than 4 months – we did our older kids at 5 or 6 months also.