I've noticed that I draw quite a crowd of readers looking for information on co-sleeping, Ferberization, and other infant sleep topics. Since I seem to have an audience, I thought I'd give everybody an update on how little Sasha is doing.
Let's take tonight as a random example. At 8pm, I went upstairs with Sasha into her room. I dressed her in her sleeper, rocked her and nursed her for a few minutes, and then she rolled away from me to let me know she was done. I put her in her crib, where she instantly rolled onto her stomach; covered her with her blanket; kissed her and said goodnight; and went downstairs.
Yes, that's it. No crying, no fussing. She wasn't asleep when I put her down in her crib, but I know it wasn't long. She'll probably be up a bit before 6am. At that point, we will bring her into bed with us and try to convince her to catch an extra 40 winks (so WE can, too) but it seldom works, these days. Fortunately, she's been gradually sleeping later and later.
We're hoping with the switch to Daylight Savings Time, we can shift her bedtime to 9pm so she doesn't get up until 7am, but that is, of course, wishful thinking.
Given this evidence, I'd say our Ferberization is an unqualified success. It was only difficult for a week. After that, she would cry for less time than it took me to finish walking downstairs. Now, of course, she doesn't cry at all. We have had to duplicate the process a few times, as her schedule has been disrupted by teeth, illness, or other stresses, but we have not had to be firm for longer than two nights. Now, she practically can't wait to get rid of me!
And did we have to do anything special for night wakings? No. For you co-sleepers out there, you may find delight at knowing that, even now, if she wakes up in the middle of the night, we do still take her into our bed with us. But she wakes up less and less often with every week that passes.
I suppose I'm jinxing myself in writing about it, and tonight she'll be up every two hours. Even so, her pattern is promising. She goes to sleep nicely, and she sleeps sound and long. Life is good.
My kitchen is: really, um, not so bad. Really. I cleaned up the spaghetti sauce, I swear!
Posted by andrea at April 2, 2003 09:19 PMAnother piece of fine writing. What is ferberization? Let em cry? You and Jeremy were really good so I have no complaints.
Posted by: David Fisher on April 9, 2003 09:30 PM