Ferberizing a toddler?

[TxCat]

I mentioned this in the other Ferber thread, but wondering if anyone has BTDT advice.

DD has never been a good sleeper, but by using Ferber at 6 months (it took 5 nights, with night 2 or 3 being the worst), we got her to go from terrible (waking up 3-6 times/night) to okay (waking up 0-3 times/night, and those wake-ups usually just requiring finding a misplaced pacifier, reassurance, etc.). Now DD is two, and it's gotten really bad the last few weeks. She wakes up most nights and refuses to go back to bed unless held, wants to come to our room, or wants me to stay and let her fall asleep on me in the glider. I'd almost consider letting her sleep with us, but she won't really sleep - she just jabbers and moves all around in our bed.

So, how trying is it to Ferber a toddler? She knows how to self-soothe, she has her loveys and her pacifier, she just wants us, and we can't keep giving in or we'll be zombies at work.

[bostonsmama]

Is she still in a crib or did you move her to a big-girl bed she can willfully get out of?

We moved DD (same age) to a big girl bed, but she started "dropping naps" and getting out of bed 8-12 times a night. I tried the silent return to sleep with no emotion/talking. I tried holding her door shut (I didn't initially want a lock, but we considered it). I even tried putting her to sleep in the pack n play, then transitioning her to the bed when we went to sleep. NONE of it worked! Developmentally she isn't ready for the "freedom" of a bed. She also cannot fall asleep if we are sleeping in bed with her or if she comes to bed with us. We simply set up the pack n play in her room, and she sleeps through the night in it. She has a pillow, comforter, and her 3 amigos (baby, bear & monkey). It was the only thing that worked. She also went back to napping 2 hours in the day. As she gets older she threatens to climb out, but she never has landed her feet on the floor (she straddles the edge and yells, "Mommiiiieee"). Some days it's a struggle. We go back & forth between letting her whine it out (cuz that's what 2yo's do) and checking/consoling every 15min. She's at that age where she knows we're there, and it's easier to tell if she genuinely is having a rough or lonely night vs. dragging bedtime out for attention. I tell her that "Mommy knows that sometimes it's hard to fall asleep, and nobody really likes sleeping all alone in a dark room when others are awake having fun." She gets that I'm sympathetic to her frustration, and I think that helps. DD was also a Ferber flunkie. She NEVER stopped screaming...45min, 1hr, 1.5hrs...that girl went on and on for weerks. I wish the CIO crowd addressed children like mine who NEVER learned to self-soothe and did NOT sleep like an angel after a week. We actually thought it was strange that 2 years later she'd still fuss almost every night at bed time. Anyways, big hugs. I don't think this stage lasts forever.

[TxCat]

Is she still in a crib or did you move her to a big-girl bed she can willfully get out of?


Still in the crib thank goodness! She is definitely not emotionally mature enough for a real bed yet, and hasn't climbed out of the crib yet.

I'm happy to sleep with her when I know there is a real need (ie, sick, teething, etc.), but this is just her being frustrated sleeping when we're not, or sleeping alone. I'm guessing we're just going to have to Ferberize or Weissbluth again and cross our fingers that it's not totally awful. Ugh.

[bisous]

I have but it was a rather negative experience. But then, I don't think my experience is typical by any means.

Around age 2.75, DS1 became a terrible sleeper again. He didn't seem to be teething, I made sure he wasn't hungry--he just DID.NOT.SLEEP and it was torturous. I finally just "shut the door" a la Weissbluth and he would just sob himself to sleep. The poor sleep continued for a couple of weeks though--when I finally discovered that he had type 1 diabetes. His blood sugar was 683 when he was admitted to the emergency room. I have nightmares about making him cry when he just felt awful. He just couldn't let me know any other way how sick he really was.

That being said, it would seem like I'm anti CIO but I'm really not. I did not need to do CIO with DS2 who is the easiest kid ever but I did it with DS3 at 6 months old. I just made DARN sure that he was healthy.