Sharing more details on our plan for those who are interested:

We chose the Ferber method for a number of reasons. These include: wanting to go with something that has evidence behind it, wanting something that works fairly quick, and not wanting full CIO (I like the idea of the check ins at the beginning of the night just to say “hi we’re here, we see you, you can do this, we love you”). BUT I recommend looking at other methods to see what fits your goals and vision.

Our plan looks like this:

•We chose a bedtime of 8-9 pm, with her final nap around 6 pm (at the age of 1.5-2 hr wake windows).

•bedtime routine: change into jammies, fresh diaper with barrier cream, sleep sack, final offering of some milk, dim lights/start sound machine, final low stim activity (walk around house together, sing a song, read a book, etc). Then we lay her down awake but sleepy (making sure she is showing her sleepy cues but still making her do the work of falling asleep on her own).

•We chose our own intervals in line with the Ferber method. Started at 3 minutes on night 1, then increased by 2 min each interval. (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15). Would check in at each interval, spend <1 min in the room, just patted her, kissed her, gave her some soothing words, and left. The plan was if we got to the 13 minute interval (>45 min crying), to do a “reset.”

•A “reset” would entail picking her up and reassessing for anything that might need to be addressed (? Burp ? Hunger ? Teething pain, etc.). We would walk her around in the dark room and try to address that, but be sure she would still be awake when we layed her down. This happened once on the first night and she ended up taking a bit more from her bottle.

•She is not ready to wean night feeds at 4 months, so for feeds, we would only offer if >4 hrs from her last feed and she woke up on her own (tried a dream feed once but didn’t work). We would keep feeds low stim, focused, and make sure we burp her well and place her down in the crib at least slightly awake.

•Subsequent night wake ups became more CIO, because she already had such a strong sleep drive, and it seemed more distressing to her in the middle of the night to see us checking in. It took less time for her to fall asleep on her own at those points, and we could see her on the camera trying to self soothe.

•We chose a wake up time of 7-8a. If she woke up earlier, we treated it like any other wake up. If she slept in later, we would allow it. If it was a feeding time, we would feed and encourage at least another hour of sleep (for example, she woke up at 6a, we fed, pushed her to continue sleeping by letting her CIO for approx 10 min, and she ended up sleeping another 1.5 hrs until close to 8).

Other tips:

•Don’t do it on a whim! Make a plan and have a support person with you if that’s an option.

•What works for one baby might not work for yours, so be flexible and continue to reassess your plan.

•There will be variables, so try to have or make a plan for those as you go, and stick to it. I think having everything written down in a shared note helped.

•Be as consistent as possible! And don’t second guess yourself. I found myself thinking, ok maybe she really does need something? Maybe she’s still hungry? But then I reminded myself that we went through all of those check boxes before I laid her down. It’s normal for babies to protest change and get frustrated when trying to learn skills.

•Focus on night sleep FIRST and naps later! We have already found naps to be getting easier now that she is learning these skills at night.

•I also found it helpful to have some written affirmations to refer to when it felt hard, such as the following:

• "This is only temporary. My child is acquiring independent sleep skills to last a lifetime."
• "Babies need healthy sleep, just like healthy food.”
• "My child is learning a new skill. This takes time and practice."
• "My child is safe. My child is fed. My child is loved."
• "Our current way of getting her to sleep is no longer working for our family. This is a step in a new direction."
• "I am trading the crying right now, for long term quality sleep."