The Ferberizing Continues

Incredibly, the Feberizing has actually been working. Noah slept through the night on Saturday and only woke up once on Sunday. When he woke up I went in and rubbed his back and he went right back to sleep. Monday night was uneventful, also. Last night was a different story. He woke up twice and cried and cried. Nathan finally picked him up and put him to sleep. I hope we aren't going backwards with the Ferberizing.

On a happier note, Noah is beginning to put vowels and consonants together! He's been jabbering for a couple of months now but he's finally starting to make "words". They're not really words, but I guess he has to start somewhere. He's been saying "ba ba ba" and "po po po". Hopefully his next "word" will be "ma ma ma"! He's also strong enough to pull himself up from a sitting position. We were playing around on Sunday and I sat him in a laundry basket. He grabbed the sides of the basket and pulled himself up so he was standing in it. I was so surprised! Now we're going to have to lower the mattress in his crib so he doesn't tumble out.

Third Night of Ferberizing

Since the previous two nights had not gone so well, I decided to take a new approach for getting Noah to sleep through the night. The new plan was to let him fall asleep like he normally would with us rocking him or cuddling with him instead of trying to let him fall asleep on his own. Then I would only feed him once in the middle of night instead of feeding him on demand. I would then gradually phase out the nighttime feedings altogether. Once that was done, we would try to get him to fall asleep on his own when we put him down for the night. This all sounded good in theory, right? Well, things did not go as planned.

I had my bi-weekly gossip and eating session with my friends last night, so I didn't get home until about 9:30. Noah was already asleep, and he had been for about 45 minutes. Nathan had let him fall asleep in his arms, and all was well - no crying as he fell asleep. I figured the plan was on track. Noah would probably wake up about midnight, I would feed him and then we'd start the "Ferberizing". At about 10:00 Noah wakes up and will NOT stay asleep. I tried rocking him until he fell asleep but as soon as his head touched his mattress, he was wide awake again. I tried this twice with the same results. At this point, he was so tired that he was crying and nothing was making him happy. I decided to let him cry it out. He cried until about 11:00 and then he fell asleep. At about midnight he woke up again and I decided to feed him. He was evidently so stressed out about trying not to fall asleep, that every time I tried to recline him so that I could feed him, I would just start crying. He obviously wasn't too hungry, so I put him back in his crib where he cried for another half an hour. He whimpered off and on until about 6:00, when Nathan brought him in to me to feed him. This time he was hungry and as soon as he was done eating he fell asleep for 2 hours without a peep. Of course, he was sleeping in my bed - not his own. I guess we'll eventually have to phase that out, too. Here's hoping that tonight goes a little smoother.

Second Night of Feberizing

Last night was definitley worse than the previous night. I got home about 7:00 p.m. and Nathan said that Noah had been crabby ever since he picked him up from my Grandma's house. Since he's generally not a crabby kid, I figured it was probably because he was still tired from not getting enough sleep the night before. I put him in his p.j.'s and we played for a little while before he started to rub his eyes and get whiny. I took him into bed with me and we watched t.v. for a couple of minutes, after which time he promptly fell asleep. I put him back in his crib and thought he'd be down for a couple of hours. Well, I was wrong. I guess he was pretty traumatized from the night before because he was only asleep for about 20 mintues. He woke up and started crying. I tried the whole Feberizing thing but it just wasn't going to work. I ended up picking him up and carrying him around the house for a while. He still wasn't happy so I decided to just let him "cry it out". After a while, Nathan went into his room and decided to rock him until he was almost asleep and then put him in his crib with the hopes that he would just kind of drift off to sleep. He tried it - but it didn't work. We waited a while and then I tried the same thing. I actually got Noah to fall asleep while I was rocking him, but as soon as I laid him down he woke up and started crying. At this point it had been about two hours since he had first woken up. I couldn't take the crying anymore so I went outside to take a breather. I was out there for about five minutes and when I came back inside the crying had stopped. He had finally fallen asleep! I decided to go to bed, but once I got settled in the crying started again. I grabbed the earplugs and stuffed them in my ears. I managed to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion for a little bit but the crying woke me up again. At about midnight I decided to feed him, but I put him back in his crib before he had a chance to fall asleep in my bed. So, the crying continued off and on all night. Nathan got up for work about 6 a.m. and brought Noah in to me so I could feed him. He fell asleep nursing but at that point I didn't even care. I fell back asleep for about an hour and he continued to sleep. I finally woke him up about 8 a.m. so that I could drop him off at my grandparent's house before I went to work. I'm not exactly sure how the third night of Feberizing is going to go, but I'm not looking forward to it.

First Night of Feberizing

Remember in the movie, Meet the Fockers, when Robert DeNiro is trying to "Ferberize" his grandson? Did you know that is an actual sleeping technique? It involves letting the child cry for five minutes, then you go in and reassure them you're still there. Then you let them cry for ten minutes before going back in to check on them. You're supposed to lengthen the time you check on them by five minutes every time until they finally fall asleep. The goal is to get them to learn how to "self soothe" themselves. This is supposed to only take 3 - 7 days. So, I tried it.

Noah went to sleep about 10:30 p.m. and woke up about 1:30 a.m. I figured that he was probably hungry so I brought him into bed with me and fed him, but I didn't let him fall asleep. I took him back into his room and laid him in his crib and he started to get fussy. I patted him for about a minute and he ended up falling asleep (I don't know if I should have fed him or not, but I knew he was hungry and I didn't want to go completely cold turkey). That went pretty well until he woke up about two hours later. I knew he couldn't have been hungry because I had just fed him. I went into his room and patted him and told him everything was ok. He continued to cry and as I walked away from his crib he started crying even harder. This pattern continued for over an hour. I'd walk in to let him know that I hadn't abandoned him, then he'd cry even harder after I'd leave. I eventually went back to bed, put in the earplugs and fell asleep around 5:00 a.m. When I went in to check on him about 7:00, his head was at the opposite end of the crib from where he'd started out. I'm guessing that he spun himself around sometime in the middle of the night after I checked on him the last time. He was still sleeping pretty hard (he was probably exhausted from all of the crying he did that night). I ended up having to wake him up, which I've never had to do in the morning.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he smiled at me which made me cry. I cried because I felt like such an awful mother (how could I let my baby cry all night without picking him up?) and also because I knew he still loved me (even though I had let him cry). Hopefully tomorrow night goes better...

6 Month Check Up

Nathan and I took Noah to the doctor today for his 6 month check up. He weighs 19 lbs. 5 oz. and is 27 inches long. He's getting so big! He's still in the 75th percentile for length, but he's gone down to the 90th percentile in weight (he was in the 95th). He got 2 shots this time instead of 3, and it hardly seemed to bother him at all. Last time he cried and cried, which nearly broke my heart! The doctor said everything was great...until we started talking about his "sleep problems". Noah is still waking up 3 or 4 times a night and won't go back to sleep unless I feed him or cuddle with him. He starts out in his crib but winds up in bed with me so that I can get a few hours of sleep. She said I definitely needed to stop doing that, as it will only continue to get worse. She said that I'm just going to have to let him cry. It's going to kill me to have to do that, but I guess I'll try it. I'll let you know how it goes.