Sunday, May 16, 2010

Attempt to use the Ferber Method to keep Nathan in his crib,

Nathan on a whole, is a very good baby. Or at least he USED to be a good baby. His crib is inches from our bed since our house is, oh TINY, and for now we're kind of stuck with this arrangement. It used to be we would put him down in his crib and he'd go right to sleep. Around 5am he would start to fuss, and in the interest of getting a few more precious hours of sleep.. we would bring him into bed with us. Well, at 10 months old, Nathan is on to us. He has figured out that if he screams enough.. well, he can get into bed with us THAT MUCH QUICKER. My question is, why? Why in the world does he want to be in bed with us?? I just don't understand. He has a brand new, and may I add - pricey, mattress. He has comfy sheets and blankets and a few stuffed animals. It's a comfortable place to sleep. I have no idea what the appeal is of sleeping between Jeff and I in OUR bed. I mean.. it's INCHES from us. It's not like he's lonely.. I just don't understand. But in our bed he wants to be. And NOW.

Last night we tried the following method at 4am. He'd been in bed with us since midnight and at 4am he started kind of whining. We changed his diaper, argued about giving him a bottle, finally made a small bottle, and put him in his crib. Screaming started almost instantly. This was the schedule I followed:

let him cry for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes I picked him up, consoled him, and when he was calm, back in his crib.
let him cry for4 minutes. Picked him up after 4 minutes, consoled him, and when he was calm, back in his crib.
let him cry for 6 minutes. I think you know the drill now!
let him cry for 8 minutes.
let him cry for 10 minutes.

At 10 minutes he was such a screaming mess, he was red and hysterical and taking large gulping breaths with tears streaming down his face and Jeff and I had another argument. Jeff was positive the doctor said not to let him cry longer than 10 minutes. I was just as positive that we were supposed to keep going with the schedule. I eventually caved and Jeff brought Nathan into bed with us. Once there it took Nathan a good 5-10 minutes to finally calm down. He was UPSET. We slept until almost 9am the next morning - unheard of in our household. So Jeff and I need another approach. Or an approach we can agree on that will not turn us into hissing harpies as we turn on each other as our baby screams in the background. Did we start this off the correct way? Did we do it wrong? I mean, obviously we messed up since we had Nathan back in bed with us by the end - not the result we wanted. So what do we do differently??

Send us some ideas people - we're willing to try almost anything since we're obviously complete pushovers!

1 comment:

Karen said...

has this worked yet? God what a pain, i guess this happens to everyone though.