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Saturday, April 10, 2004
I'm thankful that my five-month old son has adapted quite well to having his own room. He usually goes right to sleep, unless he is just fussy, or sick, or hungry. My wife does a great job figuring out what is bothering our son, and handles it much better than I do.
I wondered how we would handle our son if he had sleep issues. Here's how Mark Frauenfelder handled his (ultimately):
Some friends told us to "Ferberize" (out daughter) and we'd all be able to sleep soundly. We were skeptical, but we bought the book and followed the instructions faithfully. In a nutshell, Ferberization entails putting your baby in her crib, kissing her goodnight and walking out of the room. She'll cry, of course. After five minutes, you walk in and reassure her, then walk out again. This time you wait ten minutes. You repeat this, adding five minutes between return visits. It sounds cruel. As a parent, your instinct is to run to your baby as soon as she starts crying. But in this case, not following you instincts is the best course of action. It took exactly two nights to Ferberize our baby. She has learned to fall asleep on her own, and when she wakes up at night, she knows how to fall back asleep on her own. Best of all, she is happy, confident, and well-rested. And so are we. We have our nights, and as a result, our days back.
Newborns have a different standard of attention, but, once the child reaches infant stage (like ours has), I would wholeheartedly advocate Frauenfelder's suggestion. Hopefully, my wife and I won't have to go there.Labels: Archives_2004
.: posted by
Dave
2:27 PM
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