Life With A Baby - Extinction Method

Saturday, July 28, 2012 1:07 PM

Message # 1024582

Sandy

After a week of fairly unsuccessful attempt at Ferberizing our 9 months old, I made an appointment with our pediatrician on Thursday, with the expectation of getting a referral to a couple of sleep therapists...

What I got was a 10 mins verbal spanking on why my daughter was the way she was, which was because we enabled her by giving her what she wanted (picking her up, cuddling, nursing, even bed sharing at times), followed by a 30 mins thorough discussion on the Extinction Method of sleep training.

I left the office, completely shocked and mortified. That evening, during dinner, I had a discussion with my husband about the methodology of this crazy idea...then we just said "What the F do we have to loose, more sleep???" We put our daughter to bed at 7:45pm, shut her door, and did not come back until 5:00am following morning.

We peaked through the crack a couple of times in the middle of the night, and what we saw was a very stubborn girl sitting in her crib, but swaying back and forth, desperately keeping herself awake, every once in a while, she'd jerk herself awake and continue to cry...

Last night, we did the same thing, this time around, her cries were slightly shorter, but nevertheless still persistent. at around midnight, we physically walked into her bedroom, and saw that she was sleeping, but in a sitting position, and that her upper body had tipped forward so that her forehead was against her mattress. Throughout the night, I could hear a couple of times she woke up, but she quickly settled. We have no clue whether she'd been sleeping or just hanging out while she's not crying...but as per doctors orders, we weren't going to let her see us while she's awake until the morning.

She's one tired baby during the day, but based on the 1st and 2nd night, there's already been a difference...our pediatrician guarantees that the most stubborn of them all will come around within a week, but most are trained within 4 days. We're 2 days down so far...

I swore I was never going to be the mom who would exercise any sort of crying when it came to sleep...it took a lot in us to decide on following what the doctor told us to do...

What's most reassuring for me is that in the two days we've let her cry it out, at 7:00am, she sees us, and her cry face turns into the biggest smiles ever, so that makes me realize that we're not doing so-called harm to her.

I'm also extremely thankful for a couple of the moms in the LWB community that I've been able to discuss this with, they know who they are :)

Saturday, July 28, 2012 9:34 PM

Reply # 1024778 on 1024582

Tatiana

Thanks for posting, Sandy! I hope your stubborn little one will come around soon; it will be interesting to see an update in a week or two!

Sunday, July 29, 2012 11:14 AM

Reply # 1025073 on 1024582

Samia

OMG this sounds like my daughter, she is soo attachted to me, she sleeps in my bed, I have tried almost every sleep method and nothing works. Havent tried this one yet, let me know what happens!!

Monday, July 30, 2012 7:58 AM

Reply # 1025697 on 1024582

Rhea

There is a great book called Our Babies Ourselves by Meridith F Small. she explains how Culture and Biology shape the way we parent. Most families around the world co-sleep in some sort. If you don't have a huge problem with it and you all sleep well them perhaps you just stick with what you were doing before. All children are different and all come with different personalities and sometimes challenges but you really have to follow your own intuition. I don't think you can love a child to much and if co-sleeping is what you all require then so be it.

Monday, July 30, 2012 11:46 AM

Reply # 1025908 on 1024582

Mariachristina

PLEASE, please, read: The No-Cry Sleep Solution. by Elizabeth Pantley

You don't need to make a choice between being sleep deprived and disconnecting emotionally with your baby.

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/No-Cry-Sleep-Solution-Gentle-Elizabeth-Pantley/9780071381390-item.html?ikwid=the+no+cry+sleep+solution&ikwsec=Books

There's a brief explanation on the link above.

You do everything for your baby out of love - but you don't need to be a martyr to prove it :)

Good luck (You Awesome Mommies, you!) :)

Monday, July 30, 2012 3:52 PM

Reply # 1026048 on 1024582

Sandy

Last night was the 4th night, and she cried for about half hour and found her way to lay herself down to sleep. She's quite the stubborn girl, and that's exactly why the Ferber was such an epic fail.

We're now incorporating this method with her naps as well. The naps are harder it seems, but since we've seen an improvement on her nights, we're pretty willing to give this method a try on naps as well.

As far as the debate on whether or not to let your baby cry it out, at the end of the day, each baby and their parents are different. CIO isn't for everyone, and neither is the no-tears solution. I thought I was for sure never going to attempt any form of CIO, but when you have a very head strong baby, you do what you need to do in order for her to develop a good sleeping habit. We've done the no-tears since day one, and it became worse and worse, hence we're looking into the other school of approach, and so far we're seeing progress, slow as it may be, but it's better than going backwards, which was what was happening. It's not easy to go through it, because of the amount of crying that it's happening...but the fact is, when everything is said and done, she's had some sleep, she's still happy to see us, carries on her day like nothing happened, so that's proof enough for me that she's fine, she most certainly isn't emotionally disconnected to us!

Monday, July 30, 2012 9:26 PM

Reply # 1026244 on 1024582

Michelle

My son is now 27 months old and he is just now 'sleeping through the night'. My son was / is a very focused individual :)

I couldn't even fathom the notion of having him cry for long...I just felt like God gave me this baby, I needed to answer his call. There were MANY nights when he would only nurse to sleep and I would be up every two hours. In fact, this was more common than not.

Just four days ago I felt he was ready to night wean after I did a fair bit of reading. I nurse him to sleep and nursed him up to midnight if he called then he could only hold the milk as it was asleep until the sun came up. The first night he protested but actually, very little. Last night he didn't even wake up until he had slept 9 hours. A first in his life.

I am not suggesting you do as I do. Simply saying you aren't alone with a baby who wont sleep. Just ensure you are going with your own instincts about what you and the baby need. Lots of people gave me advice that just didn't sit well with me. They told me I was crazy for still nursing, for getting so little sleep...I just felt it was right for us.

Now I feel my instincts have been on track.

Good luck.

Monday, August 13, 2012 7:55 AM

Reply # 1045637 on 1024582

Ami

Good for you!!! I am a firm believer in teaching kids good habits to sleep, especially because it's something they will use their whole life. If you don't give them a chance to learn how to get themselves to sleep and to sleep well, you end up with a baby completely relying on someone or something to get them to sleep. Letting your baby cry isn't going to harm them. It will only make them stronger.

Monday, August 13, 2012 12:21 PM

Reply # 1045866 on 1024582

Katherine

Sandy, how is your daughter doing now, a couple of weeks later?

Monday, August 13, 2012 8:11 PM

Reply # 1046230 on 1024582

Sandy

So we're at almost 3 weeks with this, and I now know why the Ferber wouldn't have worked, my daughter is one stubborn girl!

First night we did it, she cried for 4.5 hours, and refused to sleep for the rest of the night. She spent the entire night sitting up, and as soon as her body dozed off, she'd jerk herself up and be awake again.

2nd night, she cried for about 3 hours, and again, refused to sleep. Then on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th night, she cried for about 1-1.5 hours, and she slept all those nights sitting up, at times her face would be against the slats of her crib, other times her body would be bent over with her forehead against the mattress, but nevertheless she was still in a sitting position. All the while she'd wake up about 3 times during these nights and whine and cry, usually for about 30 mins and go back to "sleep" in her sitting position.

Finally on the 7th and 8th night, after crying for about an hour on each night, she gave up on her boycott of laying down and decided to give sleeping on her tummy a go, she slept through the night.

We went back to our pediatrician after the 8th night for her 9 month check up, and our doctor followed up on her sleep progress.

He said she's by far the toughest case he's had in his career, and also of his colleagues as well, by a landslide!

So at almost 3 weeks, she cries for up to 30 mins, but goes to sleep, she'll wake up once or twice, mostly whimpers, sometimes give out a good cry, but always goes right back to bed. She knows we don't go in until 6:30am. We think she wakes up before that, but she doesn't really make a lot of noise until we go in to pick her up, maybe a slight whimper to inform us that she's awake, but that's about it.

She's not a perfect sleeper by any means, we still have ways to go, but she's definitely a big change from 3 weeks ago when she would only want to cuddle with my breasts.

She definitely takes stubbornness to a whole new level...I'm really looking forward to her toddler years (yah right!)

Extinction Method

Our Community

Our Partners