Ferber vs. Focker Round 2

This will likely be long and boring, but it's one of the posts that's hopefully going to be therapeutic for me

We have regressed in the worst way over here at our house. Somehow at 8 months Jenna is not sleeping through the night. I'm not sure when things unraveled, but they definitely did and we are in need of a change.

The current situation has been that we do bathtime and then feed Jenna a bottle in her rocking chair. We then give her the binky and rock her until she is sound asleep, at which time we sneak her into the crib. She usually sleeps for about an hour and then starts fussing. Generally speaking if we run in right away and put her binky back in she falls right back to sleep. This happens on and off throughout the night. Sometimes she finds the binky on her own and puts it back in. Then a few weeks ago, she started eating in the middle of the night again. She usually wakes between 3-4 am and will eat 7 ounces. Then she wakes for the day anytime between 5:30-6:30 am. Needless to say, the interrupted sleep has made both Jenna and mommy cranky.

So after a lot of careful consideration and research, we have decided to return to our dear old friend Dr. Ferber. His book is really interesting and really explains a lot about infant sleep patterns and parental mistakes, of which we made a lot. We have also decided that the binky is going away. Jenna only uses it at naptime and bedtime and on long car rides. We truly feel that the pacifier is sabotaging her sleep as she never falls into a deep enough sleep, and then spends so much time fussing and looking for it. We are using an interval method, where we put her down awake and then leave the room, and we check on her at progressively longer intervals.

Monday night was the first night. We put her down, checked her 3 minutes later, then 5 minutes later, then 7 minutes later and then 10 minutes later. She cried for 28 minutes before falling asleep. It was really rough. When she woke up at 2:00 am, I fed her 5 ounces instead of 7, which she didn't seem to notice, and then put her back to bed. She went right back to sleep.

Tuesday morning she woke up at 6:45, which was awesome! At 9:00 I put her down for her first nap. She cried for 12 minutes and then went to sleep for 2 hours. Then at 2:30 pm we put her down again and she again cried for 12 minutes and then slept for 2 hours. We had an awesome evening out celebrating Pat's birthday and then started our bedtime routine. This time we started our intervals at 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. She cried for about 30 minutes and then slept until 5:45 this morning, skipping her middle of the night feeding.

I'm so torn between doing what I think is best for her and giving in and doing what makes my heart feel good. It's so hard to hear her cry and to know how sad she is in her bed all alone. On the other hand, I want her to learn how to fall asleep on her own. I cannot be the mom who is laying in bed every night with my preschooler until they fall asleep. I will be starting my 5 days a week job on monday and I can't spend 2-3 hours a night trying to get Jenna to stay asleep in her bed. As for the binky, I feel slightly bad about taking it away except that for the last few days and nights, she has slept so much better without it. She NEVER takes 2 hour naps, and all of her naps since ditching the binky have been 2 hours. Also, even though she cried before falling asleep the last few nights, she slept soundly once she was out. She still wakes up happy from her naps and in the morning. She still plays in her crib for a good 15-20 minutes each morning while waiting for us. She seems totally fine. I'm angry with myself for not taking care of this earlier, while she was still younger. If we had just stuck to the plan before, and hadn't chickened out, we wouldn't be going through this right now. I'm determined to stick with it this time and not put Jenna through this process again. I know this was super long but it really helps me to get it out and see it in writing. Wish us luck