BIG Thumbs Up for Weissbluth book!!

[mspacman]

My daughter, now 11 months, was a pretty good sleeper till a couple of months ago. She had been sleeping through the night but began waking up around midnight and again at 4 am (UGH) and would only nurse back to sleep. Worse, whenever I put her down in her crib she would stand up and bawl her lungs out. She also refused to nap and was always cranky, clingy and rubbing her eyes. Everyone told me it was "separation anxiety" and "teething" and "they all become difficult around 9 months".

The Ferber method didn't work; she just sobbed to exhaustion no matter how much we soothed her. So I got the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book from the library, and began following the recommended schedule for 9-12 months. I figured, she was gonna cry anyway, so why not give it a try, cold turkey. She cried for about 15 minutes each time I put her to bed for the first 2 days. It was hard to hear her cry, but I hung in there. Then on the third day - SHE STOPPED! It's been about a month now and she goes down just like an angel, smiling and hugging her bear as I leave the room, and wakes up cheerful and chattering. She's like a different baby, takes all her naps, and no more night wakings!

This method may not be for everyone. It involves a pretty strict schedule. I'm a SAHM and it may be difficult if not impossible to follow if you work and have to bring baby home from a sitter's late in the evening, or have stuff to do in the morning when baby needs to nap. Also, some babies might not respond well to a schedule. But mine really does and I can see what a difference getting enough sleep makes. This book gave us back our happy child!!

[Melanie]

In General, what's the difference between Ferber & Weisbluth?




Mommy to Jonah

[egoldber]

In general, Ferber is more reactive and Weissbluth is proactive. Ferber is about "fixing" sleep problems. Weissbluth is about creating habits that will lead to healthy sleep patterns, although he does recommend a CIO method for "fixing" babies who already have sleep problems. (To be honest, I only "read" Ferber glancing through it at Barnes&Noble once, but I think i got the general gist.)

The thing I really like about Wessbluth is that if your baby develops healthy sleep habits you will have virtually no need to CIO. I have found this to be true for me. He says that if your baby already has healthy sleep habits, when they DO cry at night or won't go to sleep at night you can be confident that there is a real issue that needs to be resolved, not that they are fighting sleep. We have followed (generally) the advice in his book. And I do find it true that Sarah sleeps well. When she doesn't there is a real issue: she is in pain, sick, teething, gassy, or just scared (she started having nightmares around 13 months, very freaky for both of us).

Weissbluth also doesn't give nursing mothers guilt trips for nursing their babies to sleep or for night feeding. He recognizes that a breastfed baby may not be able to go a whole night without waking until they are a year old. BUT he says this is not a "sleep issue" that needs to be fixed. He also says that if your child's sleep habits are not a problem for you, then you do not have a sleep problem.

These are just some tidbits and things that I liked from Weissbluth. I know many people who have been helped by this book. Like anything else, you can pick or choose what you like from it.

HTH,

[megsmom]

I also really liked the Weissbluth book. Sometimes he seems a bit firm in tone, but he asserts that teaching your kid to sleep well and self soothe is as important as giving them proper nutrition etc. He also gave me the confidence to be a bit firm when I needed to and not run into Meg's room at every peep or protest.

I never read the Ferber book so I can't speak to it, but I know Weissbluth talks about the importance of naps, appropriate bedtimes, recognizing sleepy cues, etc. Following a lot of his tips help you avoid the overtired state which leads to a lot sleep troubles in the first place. Like Beth, we've never used the CIO approach because we've never needed to. Usually when Meg has difficulty with sleep it's probably because we've messed up her routine/naps too much and she has trouble calming down, or there really is something wrong. If she's fussing during the night at this point, I will go in there because something is amiss. Once we've fixed whatever it is, we can put her right back in the crib awake and she's off to sleep. I have observed her several times in the morning or even later at night before we go to bed lying in there peacefully awake. So goodness knows how many times she might wake up during the night but it never bothers us.

I highly recommend this book to all new moms. My cousin with twins gave it to me and I figured if she was getting sleep because of this book it was worth a read.

Jen
mom to Meghan
7/13/01

[mspacman]

I didn't read Ferber's book (didn't even know he had one) but one of my baby books had a section on the "Ferberizing" method. It seems to be the SOP for putting babies to sleep. The method implied (to me anyway) that the baby will calm down every time you revisit her. For us, it was just the opposite. She became MORE frantic the more we tried to soothe her. She would stay awake, crying continuously, for as long as an hour.

Weissbluth's take is that if you wait 15 minutes to revisit the baby, you are training her to scream for 15 minutes. He says that after 9 months, all nightime feedings and changings should stop and once the baby goes down, she stays down till morning. That way they train themselves to go back to sleep on their own, instead of automatically relying on nursing or crying for attention. This may sound harsh but it works, at least for us. My daughter sometimes hollers for a few minutes in the middle of the night but then she goes back to sleep. If she was really sick or something was wrong, she would cry steadily or it would sound like a pain cry instead of a whiny, protest cry.

I also like how he permits nursing to sleep. He says pretty much any way of soothing baby to sleep is fine; the important thing is that they do get enough sleep.