About 3 weeks ago, Cameron and I decided it was time to sleep train Madeleine since her reflux was finally gone. Because of her reflux and fussiness early on, we had gotten into a bad sleep habit of rocking her to sleep. It didn't bother us much the first 2 months or so but at around 3 months it was getting harder to do. We would rock her until she was asleep and then try to gently put her down but if she woke up, we would have to do this process again. It was taking over 30 min just to get her to go down. It was exhausting for us and for M. She was also still only taking 30-45 min naps and waking up around 4 times a night.
I researched sleep training methods and decided that the Ferber Method was the way to go. Don't judge. I hated the sound of it too. Who wants to listen to their baby cry? But M had so many sleep issues (those mentioned above plus we needed to stop swaddling because she is rolling over) that the middle of the road methods didn't seem like they could fix/help everything at once. So, 2 weeks ago we did our bedtime routine of nurse, cereal, bath, book and put her in her crib without rocking. Then I poured myself a big glass of wine and prepared for the worse.
The first night of the Ferber Method, you go in and "shhhhh" the baby after 5, 7, 10, and then every 10 minutes but no picking up. I thought it was going to take several hours but after 1 hour of on-and-off crying, M was finally asleep on her own. Success! She woke up several times the first night but put herself to sleep after about 30 min or so. I only had to get up a couple times to "shhh" her. She was getting the idea! We only had to do the method for about 3 days and she now goes to sleep on her own in her crib! Hallelujah!
So, as bad as the Ferber Method sounds, it was the greatest thing we have done for M (and ourselves) so far.
