Ferberizing Jacob - the basics

If you're like me, you like to hear other people's experiences before jumping into something yourself.  And I don't want the fluffy version, I want all the full-blown, nitty-gritty details. So, for you moms that are desperately searching for sleep training advice and/or stories...here you go!

As I mentioned in my Day 1 post, we are sleep training and weaning from the swaddle and night feedings, so we had more to tackle than just a crappy sleeper.

The Ferber method allows for brief visits from mom and dad to reassure baby that you're still there, that you love them and that everything will be okay. I'm a firm believer in doing things right the first time, which is why I knew CIO was the best route, but I liked the visits allowed through Ferber. Below is a quick summary or breakdown of what we did. This isn't exactly Ferber's rules, we changed a few things to fit our comfort level.

• Put baby in crib drowsy, but awake. They should fall asleep the same way in which they will wake in the middle of the night/nap.
• We use a noise machine, and since starting this we've been giving Jacob an Aden+Anais blanket, since they are thin and breathable. We've noticed that Jacob likes to cover his face with the blanket (which is funny, because I do the same thing!), so we are very careful to watch him and move it before going to bed.
• When baby starts crying, start the timer and wait for the following intervals before visiting baby...

Number of minutes to wait before responding to your child
Day 1 - 3 min (1st wait); 5 min (2nd wait); 10 min (3rd wait); 10 min (subsequent waits)
Day 2 – 5 min; 10 min; 12 min; 12 min...
Day 3 – 10 min; 12 min; 15 min; 15 min...
Day 4 – 12 min; 15 min; 17 min; 17 min...
Day 5 – 15 min; 17 min; 20 min; 20 min...
Day 6 – 17 min; 20 min; 25 min; 25 min...
Day 7 – 20 min; 25 min; 30 min; 30 min...

• When you reach the maximum number of minutes to wait for a night, continue to leave the room for the same interval until baby falls asleep while you are out of the room.
• If baby wakes during the night, restart the schedule from the first waiting time and work up to the maximum.
• Continue this routine after each waking until a time in the morning (usually 5 or 6 am) after which it is unlikely baby will fall back asleep.
• Naptime: Use the same waiting schedule for naps, but if baby hasn’t fallen asleep after an hour, or if he is awake again and crying, end the nap. If he hasn't slept much during the day (parent's discretion), initiate an "emergency nap", use old nap time approach, to avoid an overtired baby at bedtime.

We're on Day 6 now, and I've noticed significant improvement.  Today I feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  Such a great feeling!  We still have a few kinks to work out, but I'll post our final summary when we're all done.

Good luck!
Kate

Ferberizing Jacob - Day 3

I think I see light at the end of this dark, dark tunnel.

Naps were much better on Day 3 - he took a 1 hour nap with NO rocking or swaddle IN his crib!! This has never happened.

Nighttime was better too, and more tolerable for me. I can tell he's not crying quite as hard, he's more babbling and whimpering.

We also discovered the timer on my iPhone, which makes night waiting much better - you can actually close your eyes during those 12 and 15 minute periods.

Here's our Day 3 recap:
Nap 1 - 33 minutes of sleep, 27 minutes of crying (in that order)
Nap 2 - 1 hour, 5 minutes of sleep, 0 crying
Nap 3 - 35 minutes of sleep, 22 minutes of crying (in that order)
Bedtime (since we didn't give Jacob an emergency nap this day, we put him to bed a little early.  He didn't eat really great before bedtime, so I nursed him when he woke up the first time.) - Cried for less than 5 minutes and fell asleep.
Fed at 8:18, cried for 10 minutes and fell asleep.
Woke at 11:38, cried for 1 hour, 12 minutes and fell asleep.
Fed at 3:37, cried for less than 10 minutes and fell asleep.
Woke at 4:13, cried for 10 minutes and fell asleep.
Woke for the day at 7:15am (10.5 hours nighttime sleep)

Ferberizing Jacob - Day 2

Night 2 definitely wasn't as easy as Night 1, but naps were better and I can see that he's learning to self soothe. I got pretty upset last night, almost to the point of throwing up. My stomach was in knots hearing him cry for so long. I just had to bury my head in the pillow, and Josh had to keep telling me to stay strong. But, we survived! And I'm really hopeful that we start seeing better results soon.

On a side note, I think he's scared of his room now. LOL! Every time I go in there to change his diaper he whimpers.

Here's Day 2 recap:
Nap 1 - 30 minutes of sleep, 27 minutes of crying (in that order)
Nap 2 - 26 minutes of sleep, 27 minutes of crying (in that order)
Nap 3 - 11 minutes of sleep, 27 minutes of crying (in that order)
Nap 4 (emergency nap) - 0 crying, 1 hour, 50 minutes of sleep
Bedtime - Cried for less than 10 minutes.
Woke at 11:30, cried for 1.5 hours.
Fed at 3:30, cried for 5 minutes and fell asleep.
Woke at 4:00, cried for less than 10 minutes.
Woke at 6:20 (for what I thought was the day), I brought him into our room for our morning snuggles that I do every morning, and next thing I knew he was asleep! And slept until 8:15!  I'm not entirely sure if this totally effs up everything we've done, but I didn't do anything to get him to fall asleep, so I'm going to consider his wake time to be 8:15 (10 hours nighttime sleep)

On to Day 3...!!!

Yumm bananas!

Jacob enjoys bananas much more than oatmeal... But mommy doesn't like changing banana diapers. Ewww!!

Ferberizing Jacob - Day 1

Wednesday started like any other day - Josh spent nearly an hour and a half (4-5:30am) trying to rock Jacob back to sleep after his THIRD feeding of the night and probably the SIXTH night waking. If you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not.  This kid is one high-maintenance sleeper.  Hence our reasoning for researching and starting sleep training.

At first, I was really hesitant to start sleep training, especially Cry It Out (CIO) methods, but after 20 weeks of the above scenario playing out night after night, we decided this was best for us.  And by us I mean Josh, myself and Jacob.  Jacob needs sleep too, and he needs to learn how to self soothe.

We decided on the Ferber method for several reasons, but honestly - I don't feel the need to explain myself or our decision.  Just know I did months of research and was very well-informed.  I'll do a separate post later on the exact guidelines of Ferber and what we did.

But also please know that we hadn't yet completely weaned Jacob of the swaddle and he was still waking 3x/night to eat, so we were actually sleep training and weaning at the same time.  A rather hefty challenge, but we were ready for it!

We started sleep training on Wednesday, October 24 during the day.  Here is a recap of Day 1.

Nap 1 - 60 minutes of crying, no sleep
Nap 2 - 50 minutes of crying, 15 minutes of sleep
Nap 3 (emergency nap) - 0 crying, 2 hours of sleep
Bedtime - Squirmed/fussed for a few minutes, fell asleep.
Woke at 12:45am, cried for 60 minutes.
Fed at 1:45am, fell back to sleep immediately after.
Woke for the day at 5:50am (8 hours, 50 minutes nighttime sleep)

I'm not "spiking the football", as Josh would say, but we had a very good night and we're both very optimistic.  I'll post daily blogs through Day 3, then will post a final summary when our sleep training is complete.  Wish us luck!!!

Pumpkin patch

I took Jacob to a local pumpkin patch today. He was busy people watching and was pretty mellow the entire time. Such a sweet little boy!

We went with a bunch of other moms and babies that are members of a play group that I recently joined, Baby Buddies. There's 83 moms in the group and 40+ attended the play date at the pumpkin patch! Crazy!

Here's some pictures I took on my phone and ran through Instagram. There was a professional photographer there, so we should get better pictures of Jacob later this week. Enjoy!

First attempt at solids

We got the go ahead to start solids from our pediatrician at Jacob's 4mo check-up on Friday, so of course I tried them Saturday morning...and Sunday morning...and will continue to try until he likes it!

Yes, that's right folks - he hated the oatmeal. He just screamed and screamed and wouldn't swallow. Oh well! Like I said, we'll keep trying!

Here are some cute pics...

Jacob - 4 months

Age: 4 months
Height: 25.75"
Weight: 18lbs 14oz
Milestones: Jacob has mastered the head hold, he sits up unassisted for short periods of times and has recently found his feet.  He's still trying to figure out how to reach his feet, so its really cute to watch!  He spends a few minutes each day in his jumperoo, he really only likes the lights/music part of it so far, and he hasn't really figured out how to jump in it yet.  He still loves his playmat and Bumbo.
Sleep: Jacob is still a terrible sleeper - he wakes atleast a handful of times each night and eats 2-3 times each night, depending how things go.  We're currently in the process of weaning him of the swaddle, so that's been a real beat down.  He's still napping in his crib too.
Eating: Jacob continues to eat like a champ! He eats every 2.5-3 hours during the day and he's still exclusively breastfed.
Clothes size: 6 month onesies and 9 month pants
Diaper size: Size 3
Best Moment: Seeing his excitement when we put him in the big boy stroller was super fun!  And he's started belly laughing, so its always fun to see what will get him chuckling.
Worst Moment: Ohhh...mostly the nights :)
Teeth: No teeth!
Looking forward to: Starting solids!  We got the go-ahead today from our pedi to start solids, so we'll give him oatmeal for the first time in the morning.  I can't wait to see his face!  Once he's mastered the oatmeal, we'll move onto vegetables and then fruits.  I plan on making all his baby food, so I will be making lots of baby food this weekend! Yay! :)