Ferber's Method Truly Works!

My daughter has been a rough sleeper since the day she was born. She would not sleep unless she was in my arms, even in the hospital. The nurses were very upset with me, because I held her while I slept. I really felt hopeless since every time I laid her down, she would awake screaming. The only time I could sleep is if I was holding her. This continued. She slept in our bed, and only slept after drinking her bottle. She would wake every night for a bottle ort two even after she turned one. Finally I felt enough was enough.

After 20 months of not being able to sleep through the night without needed to wake up and warm a bottle, I decided to read the book by Dr. Ferber. This book first goes over how we sleep and the sleep cycle. Why a child would need to awake for their sleep soother. This in our case was the bottle. He then describes how to break the child from the sleep soother. I was scared he would advise us to let the child cry all night as many books do. To my surprise his method was very pleasant, and made me feel that I was able to accomplish the goal.

The first night was rough. She asked for her bottle as usual, but I had to let her know that is was all-gone. Of course she did not believe me, why would her mommy throw her bottles away. We then went to prepare for bed, and to make her feel like it is time to go to sleep. We gave her a bath, read a couple books, and found the new sleep soother. The new soother was a stuffed teddy bear. She was never a big fan of a security blanket or stuffed animal, since she had her security bottle.

I put her to bed, and said to give the bear a hug so the bear can go night night with you. She cried a bit for her bottle, but after just 5 minutes she was asleep. As usual at 3 am, she was awake screaming hysterically for her bottle again. After 5 minutes, I walked in to remind her that the bottles were thrown in the trash, which made her very made. I told her to grab her teddy bear. I walked out and let her cry another 8 minutes, when she stopped I checked on her and she was back asleep.

The next day was even better. She was asleep in about 3 minutes of being upset, and woke up only for about 5 minutes total.