Ferber - Night #1

Ryan has always been a good sleeper, particularly for his age. At the risk of being shunned by all of our fellow new parents, I'll tell you that by 1 month he was sleeping 6 hour stretches and now goes about 8 hours before waking up to eat. BUT... we realized recently that he has developed a habit of needing to eat to fall asleep (naptime and bedtime). We had a good bedtime routine that ended with him falling asleep on my breast and me carefully moving him to the crib. We thought this was great until we realized that when he randomly wakes up in the middle of the night, the only way he can fall back asleep is to nurse. He doesn't wake up every night, which tells me that he doesn't NEED to eat in the middle of the night anymore. So we have decided to try and break this habit by implementing the Ferber method.

Last night we changed things up on Ryan. I fed him an hour before he went to bed. We did the rest of the bedtime routine, and then Justin put him in the crib. He cried for 5 minutes, Justin went in and put his hand on him, stayed for a minute, and then left. He cried for another 7 minutes and then fell asleep. Although it was hard to hear him cry, it didn't take long for him to fall asleep so we were pretty excited. Then he woke up at 4:15 am and the misery started.... Justin and I listened to him cry for an hour, following the method by going in at different intervals to try to comfort him without picking him up, rocking him, or nursing. It was torture. The worst part was when you went into the room and he'd realize you weren't going pick him up, and he'd cry louder and angrier. We almost gave in a dozen times, worrying that he really was hungry, but eventually he fell back asleep.

In the morning, we felt SO guilty, but he didn't seem to remember the commotion at night and greeted us with a huge smile. I know this has worked for a lot of people, and although it felt mean and selfish, I know in the long run it will be better for everyone, Ryan included. But wow, was that tough. Tonight is round 2...