Bedtime

Putting Christoffer to bed is a piece of cake:

• Step 1: around eight o’clock tell him its bedtime;
• Step 2: give him a kiss and carry him into bed; and
• Step 3: turn off the light and close the door (leaving it open only slightly just in case).

We seldom hear more from him until around seven the next morning. Too easy.

Tobias, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Although he is 3 years older we still haven’t managed to create a routine for him. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is a battle (although it has become easier over the years).

Why this difference? With Christoffer we took the hard-line on sleep from the beginning (when he was about one year). We took the battle upfront. We put him to bed and let him scream/cry. Every 2-5 minutes we would check on him and encourage him to sleep. Ultimately he fell asleep. We did this for a number of days (3) until presto he would simply close his eyes and fall asleep. The implementation was hard, but we were determined.

As first time parents with Tobias we tried the same, but we didn’t have the stamina and the will. Tobias read our weakness and exploited it. We could not carry on and are still paying the price today.

There are several lessons to be learned from this experience.

• First, make your life easier, teach your child to sleep. Sleeping alone is something that has to be learnt. All that children know from when they are born is the caring nurture and comfort of falling asleep with their mother.
• Second, it is much easier to teach a child to sleep at an early age rather than later. Tobias is a testament to this. We have tried several times after being unsuccessful the first time, but have never succeed as well as with Christoffer.
• Third, sleeping must be practiced. Practice means crying is inevitable. Practice also means that it unlikely that the child will learn it after one day. It can go on for a number of days as we experienced with Christoffer.
• Fourth, if you are set on going through with the sleep routine don’t cave in. Children are quick to exploit any weakness. It will only result in the child crying longer and louder making it even harder to complete the task.
  

Until recently I was not sure where we had sourced this sleeping technique. We probably picked it up in some parenting book or from friends. Anyway, I had a look on the Internet and came up with a name: Richard Ferber.

Richard Ferber is director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children’s Hospital in Boston. Since writing his book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, he’s become known as a leading — and controversial — pediatric sleep expert.

Now I haven’t read this book, but it seems to me that we have pretty much taken the Ferber line with Christoffer.

Below is a quote from the babycenter website that explains his methodology:

Ferber believes in a "progressive" approach to helping your child fall asleep and stay asleep. Briefly, he suggests that after a warm, loving pre-bedtime routine such as singing, rocking, or reading a book, you put your child to bed while she's still awake. Putting her to bed, says Ferber, is crucial to successfully teaching her to go to sleep on her own. Once you put her in bed, leave the room. If she cries, wait a certain amount of time before you check on her. (The suggested waiting time, which Ferber charts in his book, is based on how comfortable you are with the technique, how many days you've been using it, and how many times you've already checked on your baby that night.) When you do go back to her room, soothe her with your voice but don't pick her up, rock her, or feed her. Gradually increase the amount of time that passes between checks. After about one week, your infant will learn that crying earns nothing more than a brief check from you, and isn't worth the effort. She'll learn to fall asleep on her own, without your help.