Continued: We Survived the Four-Month Sleep Regression: Our Experience with a Sleep Consultant and Ferber

We had just survived our first night of sleep training and thought we had conquered it all! But the days, however, were a whole different story. On Saturday, things went a little better. He cried for an hour that morning before his first nap, but he slept for one hour and 20 minutes — which was unheard of for him. For his afternoon nap, he cried for 40 minutes, then slept for 30 minutes. He woke up, cried for another 15 minutes, but then went back to sleep for another 50 minutes. For us, this felt like a success, as it meant he was learning to self-soothe and resettle. That night, he fell asleep in just 10 minutes, and we thought we had solved all our issues — surely, things would get better going forward.

Sunday was the hardest day we’d ever had with him. We put him down for his first nap, and he cried for a full hour before finally falling asleep for just 25 minutes. Now, according to our sleep consultant’s guidelines, we ideally want him to sleep for an hour or more. If he wakes up before the hour is up, we have to leave him in his cot for the remainder of the hour to see if he will self soothe and put himself back to sleep. Well, our boy did not get this message and he had three naps that day, all about 30 minutes.

The heartbreaking part was hearing him cry for up to an hour before falling asleep, only for him to wake too early and then cry for another 30 minutes to make up the missing sleep time. The other catch was, if his nap was under an hour, we had to shorten his next wake window and get him back to sleep sooner. So, by the time we took him out of his room, he’d already spent 30 minutes of his wake window crying. We’d comfort him, try to cheer him up, then put him back down and start the process all over again.

We were in constant contact with our sleep consultant throughout the day, but it was clear they were stumped by how our boy wasn’t following the clearly outlined rules. At one point, they suggested, “He must have been undertired when you put him in the cot, and then he cried so much that he became overtired, which is why he’s not sleeping properly.” It was at this point we felt like it was all a bit hopeless and that our sleep consultant was clutching at straws.

Needless to say, we had an incredibly rough day. We felt like we spent the entire time listening to our son cry, feeling powerless to help him. It broke my heart, and honestly, it felt like we were torturing our little guy. That night, after he was finally asleep, we ordered Maccas (McDonald’s), and I drank three gins — a sign of just how bad the day had been. My husband and I fell into our hot tub afterward and just sat there silently, completely mentally drained with nothing to say, which is normal for him, but out of character for me!

We decided we couldn’t struggle through another day like that, so we started making our own rules. We cut back on the sleep consultant’s advice, and listened to our own instincts a bit more. We shortened the crying period if he woke early, and lengthened his wake windows to something that worked better for him. Lo and behold, he started falling asleep quicker and staying asleep! I know the sleep consultants are experts, but after all, we are his parents — so that makes us some kind of experts too, right?

Looking back at what I just said about us being experts too, I can’t help but wish someone had said that to me sooner. If only someone had reminded us that we were the experts when it came to our child, instead of always offering their own advice about what they would do in our situation. Well-meaning people always have advice to offer you, but they very rarely accept that maybe you know what’s best for your child.

We had a 14-day package with our sleep consultant, but after the first few days, we felt we had things under control. The consultant didn’t really offer anything new after that except to keep adjusting wake windows until it worked and we could do that ourselves. By the end of the program, we were pretty much handling it ourselves.

Eight months later, I’m happy to say he’s sleeping like an angel. If anything, he’s sleeping too well, his daytime naps are running too long, and his bedtime is getting later and later. He now knows his bedtime routine so well that he’ll pick up his pyjamas and run around saying “Ssh ssh ssh” because we sing him a bedtime song. Most nights, he lies down and babbles to himself until he falls asleep — no crying. He still wakes up once in the early hours of the morning for a feed, but he’s only human right?

I often look back and wonder if I’d make different choices next time. The answer is yes, but that’s because I’m a slightly (just slightly!) more experienced parent now, with a bit more knowledge under my belt. Having said that, do I know a better way of handling things? Not without doing a lot more research. At the time, though, I think we made the best decision we could and got the outcome we needed without causing our son any trauma. I’ve read a lot of articles claiming the Ferber method doesn’t cause any long-term emotional or psychological damage — I’ve also heard the opposite, but I haven’t found solid research on that yet.

Looking back, I realise that the sleep consultant mainly provided us with some vocal handholding, keeping us on track and reassuring us that we were doing the right thing at times when we might have thought about quitting. And for that, I’m grateful.

I often joke with my husband that I could now do my own research on sleep science, make a factsheet, talk parents through the Ferber method, and offer support for two weeks to reassure them and keep them going…voila! I’d be a sleep consultant… I just don’t have the qualifications. Is there even a qualification for that?