Opinions on Ferber method?

I think everyone will have an opinion on this. This isn't something I could do but at the end of the day your her mum and you need to do what's right for u. I know that's its normal for them to feed overnight up until their a year old x

I personally don’t believe in leaving them to cry, I do believe it is neglect, babies need comfort and the only way they can communicate is by crying. I haven’t been able to do it with my 8 month old but have tried twice. she still goes to sleep on me and then I put her down. However, she is a pretty good sleeper and will only stir for her dummy occasionally. She often wakes before me and will entertain herself. We co-sleep so I usually wake up with her touching my face and smiling at me so the wake up thing might not be related or it could be that actually she slept better hence the not crying. Only you as her mother can make that judgement though

We did modified Ferber method with my eldest. I couldn’t stand to leave her crying for the suggested times so we started at 1 minute and only went up to 5 minutes max. It took 2 weeks and then she went from 5-6 wakes per night to just once or sleeping through, and settling herself to sleep at bedtime rather than having to be patted. It worked for us, I know people have strong opinions on it though.

I am utterly shocked that a sleep consultant has suggested the Ferber method. Im a nanny and have worked with a few sleep consultants and this is not a method which should have been used by sleep consultants for many years! You can absolutely support your child to sleep without using the Ferber method

Every mother feels bad when they sleep train, it generally shows you are a good mother. I hated it but also knew that it was the best thing for me and my daughter. My daughter will be turning 5 in a couple of weeks and still has a brilliant sleep routine. Stick with it as you will feel so much better with sleep. I used to give a formula bottle as last feed so she was more full for sleep. I followed the Gina ford sleep training book called ' the contented little baby book'. It may help

@Larissa I was shocked too as the reason I hired her was because I thought they would use a gentle approach as I could do Ferber if I wanted to without her support. She has 20 years experience apparently

Oh gosh, the sitting in her cot awake broke my heart. Sleep is develomental, they arent supposed to be ‘trained’ to do that. Encouraging self soothing techniques, absolutely, but ultimately sleep training is just letting them know they can cry and cry but they wont be getting what they want/need. You feel guilt because its not biologically normal to not respond to their needs. We are carry mammals and our babies arent supposed to be independent for a long time. I’m saddened its even a thing but society has unfortunately allowed it and made it the ‘norm’ 😥

Cry it out/ferber type methods teach them not to waste energy crying cos nobody is coming. I used the comfort/soothing ladder which is extremely gentle and only allows 15 seconds of crying before you try the next step. Feeding to sleep being the last. The idea is you try other options first and see what works before breastfeeding. Once I stopped feeding to sleep my daughter slept better but I always comforted her and never left her to cry. Falling asleep independently/self soothing are terms used by sleep consultants to get people to pay them to support.

@Natalie do you pick up or leave them in the cot whilst soothing? I just find she gets more upset when I check in or make contact which is why it always leads to feeding.

My daughter was in a cot attached to our bed until 2 so I'd leave her in the cot and put a hand on her instead. Picking her up to settle then putting her down made her sleep worse. Once we started getting her to sleep in the cot she slept better too.

‘Sleep consultants’ are literally sales people who need you to think there’s a problem so they can sell you a ‘solution’. Honestly it’s shitty and it’s so tough but it’s totally normal for a baby of that age to wake at night and be hungry/thirsty. You can’t teach a child to sleep (if you could EVERYONE would do it). You only teach them to not bother crying out for you. As an adult how would you feel if you were upset and calling for someone and they never came? It’s your call I guess of what’s most important to you…

I personally don’t like it when sleep consultants say that their sleep training method or sleep training in general is ultimately better for the baby and that is why you should stick with it. It feels like they are trying to undermine your instincts as a mother and imply that people who don’t sleep train are failing their child in some way. Ultimately I think some babies take better to sleep training than others and you should let your own instincts guide you.

Thanks for the comments, yes I was told she shouldn’t need milk through the night now at 11 months or water as babies don’t need it at night like we do which I think is totally inhumane. I also am giving her a gift of better sleep my doing this process. She wasn’t cheap to hire and as a first time and single mum totally sleep deprived I don’t know what to do for the best but this feels wrong and it haunts me to do it.

Babies don’t sleep the same way as adults. They wake up through the night, sleep trained babies just fall back asleep by themselves. So it’s a myth that sleep trained babies get better sleep. It’s very commonly used by sleep consultants to help counter the patent guilt and get them to buy the services. It’s all for profit.

OP I don’t mean to shame you, it’s really tough when sleep is hard and going back to work makes it that much trickier. You have to go by your situation and do what’s best for your family, that includes yourself. If you don’t want to ignore your instincts there probably are many other things you can try. I was very opposed to bedsharing but ended up doing exactly that after a sleep regression at 7m and now he’s 14m and I love sharing a bed so much and we all sleep more that way.