WE FERBERIZED OUR BABY

No, ferberizing is not the latest instamatic kitchen appliance. Our child is in one piece. We used the Ferber method to sleep train Ansel over the past two weeks. The idea is that you get rid of sleep associations that involve things that may not be there when he wakes up in the night (A boob, parent’s s arms, a pacifier). He is put down in his crib to sleep after his normal routine, but awake and drowsy (rather than the previous transfer sleeping at my boob to the crib). If he cries, we check on him with increasingly longer periods of time between checks, but don’t pick him up. He took to it well. The most he cried the first night was ½ hour. He had two night wakings. This is amazing compared to the 6-7 we have been experiencing the past 6 months. I woke up to silence at 6:15. He didn’t wake until 6:30. By his first nap the next morning he only cried (and it was more of an overtired whine) for ten minutes.
It was a difficult decision to make, choosing this method. We tried other ways to get Ansel to sleep longer but they did not work for us. I thought as he got older he might just start to sleep better. Instead I got more sleep deprived and began to resent my son for not letting me sleep. We were putting off any solution that involved crying. No one wants to hear their child cry! Personally, I wanted to be an attachment parent (Dr Sears). Ansel slept in our bed or in a co-sleeper crib for the first 6 months and he and I slept well in the beginning. I did not have to get out of bed to feed him and I had peace of mind that he was right next to me. But as he got bigger and mobile and was still feeding every 1-2-3 hours, neither he nor I slept well. Dr Sears’ methods are beautiful and loving but he made me feel like a bad parent if I didn’t feed my child 24 hours a day on demand. I am tired. I go to work each morning and need to function like a human. I need my sleep and I needed my baby to sleep alone.
I am learning as with all baby methods and theories you must do what works best for you and your child. We have taken parts from different styles in developing our parenting stlye. Each child is different and we felt that Ansel was having problems going back to sleep because he was used to us coming and helping him and Ferber seemed like the right thing to do. Most importantly, I am learning not to feel guilty for the way I have chosen to raise my child. I am learning, I love him, and I don’t think he’ll be in therapy for years because I let him cry a little