I've been reading Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber. However, I've been slack and am not done the book yet, and I wasn't planning to really implement anything in the book until I was done it.
However, the one thing I have changed in the last few days is that I have started putting Mari down drowsy but fully awake for naps, kissing her goodnight and leaving the room. Until recently, I was putting her down only once she started closing her eyes, though before she fell fully asleep. About half the time she opened her eyes again when I put her down, but if she managed to fall asleep again she did so with me still in the room. I had huge problems with her waking up after only a short nap, still cranky and needing to be put back down right away.
Since I started following Ferber's advice to leave the room, let her fuss for awhile and if need be, re-enter the room, soothe her and go out of the room again quickly, before she falls asleep, Mari has started to nap much better. I think it's because she isn't falling asleep with me in the room and then waking up wondering where I am. Because she's in the same environment if she lightly wakes up as when she fell asleep, she can put herself back to sleep.
I haven't formally Ferberized. I have not left Mari to cry for increasing increments of time. I've just let her fuss for what I thought was a reasonable period of time. I haven't let her full-out cry. And yet I already see a huge difference. Mari is usually staying asleep for naps of about an hour and a half (give or take) for the morning and afternoon naps, though the late-afternoon nap, if taken (less often these days) is only about half an hour. She's still sleeping pretty well through the night, though still waking up typically once to feed at about 3-4 a.m.
I'm so much happier and better-rested and so is Mari. I will post about this again if this is still working in a few days, or when I decide if I'm going to formally implement a Ferber-type program. But I hope I don't have to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wonderful! I remember getting to the point in the book where Ferber explains about sleep associations, and going, OH. Even just having Caleb's bedtime routine all in one place (rather than reading and nursing in my bed and then moving him to his room to sleep) made a difference. It sounds like you guys are feeling much better! I bet you're right, she may not even need to cry at all.
ReplyDeleteWell, not every day is perfect. Mari didn't nap very well today and for her afternoon nap, I ended up having to rock her back to sleep because she woke up after only half an hour and was clearly still tired, though she'd originally fallen asleep on her own, without me in the room.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to do when Mari does that -- wakes up after a mini-nap still tired. She also only slept 30 minutes for her morning nap and seemed fine then, but I knew she had to get a decent afternoon nap in, or she'd be a mess. What do you do?
If Isaac takes a mini-nap, I get him out of his crib when he wakes up. He can't be rocked to sleep -- he needs to be on his own to fall asleep, and pretty much always has -- so if he wakes up, I'm not going to be able to get him back down. Sometimes he'll take another nap in a little while, if he's been woken because he pooped or if his brother woke him; I change him, feed him if it's time, let him play or hold him for a little while, and see if he gets ready to sleep again. He might be ready in an hour or two, or if it's close to bedtime (if he slept from 2:15 - 3 p.m., for example), I will maybe put him down for bed a little early, like 6:15 instead of 6:45.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm really desperate, I'll take him for a ride in the car, which if it doesn't make him fall asleep will at least calm him down, and then I'm not listening to him complain while the walls of the house are closing in. But intervention on my part won't work to get him back to sleep, so that's pretty much all I can do -- just get him and try again later.
Caleb's been seriously resisting naps for a couple of weeks now, and he's a basket case in the evening if he hasn't had a nap. But I figure the screaming will stop at bedtime, if it doesn't happen before that. :) There's nothing I can do to make him sleep either, sadly; I just have to make the environment amenable and hope he can convince his body to settle down.
Makes sense to me. Mari doesn't really like to be rocked to sleep anymore either. The only time I can is when she's woken up from a too-short nap and she's still half-asleep but awake enough she'd have trouble going back down on her own.
ReplyDelete