Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Thank you, Dr. Ferber

So, in the saga titled "How to teach Owen how to sleep," we took a big leap last weekend and implemented the Ferber strategy of 1) a consistent bedtime routine, and 2) teaching Owen to fall asleep without the help of swings, swaddles, eating, being held/rocked to sleep, etc. (Yes, this means he cried, but it's not like Meet the Fockers. We go back in to reassure him and calm him--but not put him to sleep--in increasing intervals.) It was a HUGE success!

Ferber night #1: 2.5 hours to fall asleep, slept 4 hours
Ferber night #2: 1 hour to fall asleep, slept 9 hours (w/ no nighttime feedings)
Ferber night #3: 5 minutes to fall asleep, slept 10.5 hours! (w/ no nighttime feedings)
Ferber night #4: 30 minutes to fall asleep, slept 10 hours (w/ 1 nighttime feeding)
Last night (#5): 5 minutes to fall asleep, slept 10 hours (w/ 1 nighttime feeding)

Can you believe it? We're thinking the couple of nights w/ no nighttime feedings were helped out by the fact that the little guy was sooo exhausted. So, for the next while, I'm pretty happy with the way nights 4 and 5 went!

We're still struggling with naps. Ideally, for his age, Owen would take 3-4 naps a day (2 longer ones early in the day and 1-2 short ones later on in the day). He's able to put himself to sleep, but he can't seem to stay asleep. He's been pretty consistently going down in under 5 minutes, but only sleeping for 20.

Anyways, we're pretty excited. Having a nighttime routine (both at bedtime and in terms of being able to sort of predict how he'll sleep) is so great!

The little guy (or Stinker, as Kyle likes to call him) was really a trooper. He sort of moved beyond tired-fussy into tired-comotose for the first few days, so the weekend really wasn't as bad as we were prepared for!

At one point Owen fell asleep sitting up in his Bumbo chair. Poor guy. We had to pick him up (wake him up) and put him down in his crib.

Even a little sleep-deprived, we were able to coax some happy time out of him...how cute is this?


3 comments:

Megan said...

Oh yea!!!! I'm glad to hear the weekend wasn't as bad as you expected! That's really cool that he's sleeping that long. Yipee!

merritt said...

My friend Kel had the same problem with Kiran when she was young. Last year (almost exactly!) when I went to visit her overseas, we did the whole letting her cry method. I was moral support, and after a few days it was much better, like you have said. And Kiran was also a terrible napper like Owen is. I'll be praying that he finds his groove and can get into a good sleep pattern.

Courtney said...

We had the same thing with Clinton. He would sleep anywhere from 9-12 hours at night and from 3 months to over 6 months, he did not take one real nap...just 10-20 minute cat naps...and I'm a work-from-home mom! It was really hard. Once he started crawling and now walking, he's a big time napper and all night sleeper! BTW--I'm a "lurker" friend of Franny's (and the Mezger boys)...I think I've posted a comment on here before. Anyway--good luck with the sleeping.