Hi everyone,
I started Ferber with my 11mo four nights ago. I just wanted to post here for any input or suggestions as I proceed.
Baby was a premie, spent 3mo in NICU. Once we got through the newborn phase, he did sleep through the night for several months in a row (I remember telling people I didn’t want to jinx it, but that he was a fantastic sleeper). Then he started teething and got a cold at the same time and his sleep was absolutely wrecked. He was waking up 5-10x a night and needing me to rock him back to sleep. I did this for probably nearly 2 months and I just decided something had to change, I couldn’t do it anymore.
So four nights ago I started Ferber. Night 1 he cried for a total of 60 minutes and we did probably 5-6 check ins. We don’t pick him up, just rub his back or chest and shush, tell him we love him and goodnight, etc. Night 2 he cried for 40 mins total, and we only did 1 check in because his crying was intermittent and he was self soothing. Night 3 he cried for 30 mins total. Last night he fell asleep during his last bottle and never woke back up, but he did wake a couple hours after that and cried for a minute or two but put himself back to sleep with no intervention from us. Each night he has slept the entire night with some wakes, but he always self soothes.
Since we started Ferber, he wakes VERY early. Like 4:40-5:00 am usually. It’s horrific lol. This part doesn’t make sense to me since he usually has only been sleeping for ~8hrs at this point.
We have a consistent night time routine: bath, bottle, book, lay down in crib. He usually goes to bed around 8pm, sometimes closer to 9 if there’s a lot of crying fussing.
His daytime naps are great, quite consistent unless we have a busy day or an event to go to that throws off the schedule. Wake windows are 3/3/4 at the moment and I feel that works for us. He usually sleeps around 2 hours total during the day. Nap 1 is usually around 10am or 11am and lasts 1.5 hours and his last nap is usually 30-40mins and happens around 3-4pm.
So I guess I don’t have a specific question, more just opening myself to any suggestions or improvements I can make, specifically to help him sleep longer in the morning. This morning when he woke at 4:40 I tried to just let him cry himself back to sleep but he continued crying for at least an hour. So I broke and brought him to bed with me so I could sleep longer. I know that this is not ideal because he will grow to expect it, and I don’t want to create that habit, but I also don’t want to wake up for the day at 4:40am. 😂
Thanks for any input! 🫶🏻