Friday 2 September 2016

Things I said I'd Never do as a Parent Part 2: Sleep Training

Now this one's going to be a controversial one. Sleep training usually brings to mind leaving your baby to cry for hours on end whilst you calmly sit supping on a glass of wine with no regard to the helpless little one screaming for you in the next room. I'd always been adamant that I would never just leave my baby to cry. A crying baby is crying because they need you surely?

Lewis first slept through the night when he was 12 weeks old. He slept through the night once. Once. That was it. From that point on he would wake between 2-3 times a night and between the husband and I we were managing that pretty well, both getting just enough rest to still be functional. We knew it wouldn't last forever and soon enough Lewis would drop 1 feed and then inevitable the rest. How wrong we were.

At around 4.5 months Lewis's sleep went to absolute shit. The dreaded 4 month sleep regression they call it. He was waking anywhere between 4-5 times a night and for some of those wake ups would stay awake for over an hour wanting to play. It got to the point where Rob would just get him out of bed and play with him until he got tired again. Lewis was waking up anywhere between 4-5am everyday and there was not a hope in hell you could get him back to sleep. Again we told ourselves it was a phase, he would grow out of it, we just had to put up with it temporarily.

Around 6 months things got worse. Lewis was up between 6-7 times a night and the only way to get him back to sleep would be to feed him or rock him for ages. He would fall asleep in your arms and just as you were about to lay him down in the cot those eyes would burst wide open and the crying would start again. You couldn't make any noise if you were on the bedroom side of the house as even a mouse fart would wake him. Most nights I would eventually resort to pulling out the sofa bed in his room and bringing him in there with me in an attempt to get him back to sleep. Sometimes it worked but other times I just got beat up for an hour before I admitted defeat and we got up for the day at 4:30am.

At 6.5 months we knew we had to do something. We'd tried the gentle methods, shushing, patting, staying in the room, Ewan the Bloody Dream Sheep, leaving multiple dummies in the cot in the vain hope that when he woke he'd find one and shove it back in his gob himself. So it was with much shame that I started googling sleep training techniques.

We settled on the Dr Ferber approach and I promptly ordered his book "Solve your Child's Sleep Problems" from Amazon. When the book arrived I was surprised by how thick it was. How can you write such a large book about essentially letting your child cry to sleep was my thought. As it turns out this Dr Ferber knows a lot of shit about baby sleep. So much so he wrote a big book about it all! I read the book cover to cover. It explained all the mechanics of sleep in children, gave case studies of common sleep issues, gave guidelines on how much sleep children should be getting and was all around a really interesting read. I'd honestly recommend that everyone read it just to understand how sleep in children works.


From reading the book it became painfully clear what our problems were. When Lewis went through his sleep regression we resorted to feeding him back to sleep and this had now become a sleep association for him, as well as things like Ewan (that bloody sheep!) and his dummy. Dr Ferber compares it to as an adult you go to sleep with your pillow and duvet. When you wake in the night (which we all do, children included), you practically unconsciously check your surroundings, as your pillow and duvet are still there you drop right back to sleep and will likely have no recollection that you woke at all. However, if at one of these wakings you discovered that someone had taken your pillow and duvet away and hidden them you would probably end up waking fully and find it hard to go back to sleep until you had found your pillow and duvet. This is what was happening with Lewis. He was falling asleep on his bottle in our arms with Ewan (fecking sheep!) in the background and usually a dummy popped in at some point. Upon waking he was finding himself in his cot, with no Ewan (&*@£$), no dummy, no bottle and no Mummy or Daddy holding him. So inevitably he would wake up and cry until these conditions were met again.

The answer to the problem according to Dr Ferber was his Progressive Waiting approach. He adamantly refuses this approach to be labelled as a Cry It Out (CIO) approach and maintains that he uses this approach to minimise crying and does not believe at any point that parents should just leave their children to cry for hours on end. The method works by removing the inappropriate sleep associations; in our case feeding to sleep, fucking Ewan and the dummy and instead creating a sleep environment that will be consistent throughout the night. At this point you put your baby to bed, give them a kiss or however else you want to say goodnight and then leave the room. This is where the progressive waiting starts. You leave your child for a set period of time and if they are crying once this time is up you then go into them to check on them and to reassure them that you are there if they need you but now is sleepy time. Each night the timings get a little longer.





1st Wait Period

2nd Wait Period

3rd Wait Period

Remaining Wait Periods


Day 1


3 Minutes

5 Minutes

10 Minutes

10 Minutes

Day 2


5 Minutes

10 Minutes

12 Minutes

12 Minutes

Day 3


10 Minutes

12 Minutes

15 Minutes

15 Minutes

Day 4


12 Minutes

15 Minutes

17 Minutes

17 Minutes

Day 5


15 Minutes

17 Minutes

20 Minutes

20 Minutes

Day 6


17 Minutes

20 Minutes

25 Minutes

25 Minutes

Day 7


20 Minutes

25 Minutes

30 Minutes

30 Minutes


Dr Ferber believes that most babies over 6 months can go through the night without a feed but he offers a whole load of advice on combining night weaning with the Progressive Waiting approach. We decided that if Lewis woke between 11-12pm and 3-4am we would feed him, but all other wake ups would be treated with the above approach. We also decided to train his naps at the same time to try and get everything sorted all in one hit. I say we, but actually the task fell to me. Ultimately as I'm such a control freak there was no way I could have slept anyway if the husband was doing his shift of training so it was just better for us all if I took the brunt of it.

So in readiness for our first night I kept Lewis up an hour later than usual as suggested in the book. Made myself a make shift bed on the sofa and prepared for what I'd started referring to as the "Night of Terror". After Lewis' bath we got dried and in our pyjamas, I read him a bedtime story, put him in his sleeping bag, told him I loved him and good night. He started crying straight away and do you know how long he cried for? 12 minutes total. 12 minutes! He had cried for longer when I had been rocking him, patting him, shushing him etc. He woke 3 times that night each time going back to sleep quicker than the last. I fed him once at 3am and after that he was asleep before the 3 minute check time could arrive.

Night 2 at bedtime he cried for 5 minutes. Woke 3 times again, fed once and each time falling back to sleep before the 5 minute check in time.

Night 3 at bedtime cried for 1 minute. Woke once for food, back to sleep with no crying. Woke at 7am.

Night 4 at bedtime no crying. Woke once for food, back to sleep with no crying. Woke at 6:30am.

Night 5 at bedtime no crying. Slept through the fricking night!!!!!!!!!! Woke at 6:30am

Night 6 at bedtime no crying. Slept through the night!! Woke at 6:30am.

Night 7 - by this time I'd stopped recording anything as he was going to sleep almost instantly and if he woke in the night wasn't even crying, would just make a few gurgles then drop back to sleep. For his naps Lewis was going straight to sleep upon being placed in his cot and was sleeping anywhere between 1-2 hrs.


I know sleep training is a controversial subject and no one likes to think of their baby crying for any period of time. I'm not suggesting its the best thing for everyone but it has certainly been a revelation for us. Lewis is so much better rested. He's able to stay awake for longer in the day and is in such a better mood. His bedtime is now a consistent 7:30pm as opposed to whenever we couldn't stand the grumpiness anymore. He has a set routine throughout the day now with well timed naps and feeds. With my return to work looming on the horizon it has certainly been worth it. I now have confidence that Lewis will be able to nap at the childminders or if Nanny is looking after him.

So there we have it. Part 2 of my "Things I said I'd never do as a Parent" series. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what some of your things you said you'd never do were.

Oh and as for Ewan.... we love him really! He still has pride of place in Lewis' cot but no longer sports any batteries. Whilst he became a bit of a problem for us in Lewis' early days he really was a godsend and I'd definitely recommend him to parents with newborns. If only he had the staying power to remain on all night instead of 20 minutes then he'd be my 100% baby essential.






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