Ian's Ferberization

This picture was taken in May, when Ian was about 4 weeks old.

I recently heard that by 4 months 90% of babies are sleeping through the night. I could not believe that our boy, the sweetest and "easiest" of all babies, was one of the rebellious 10%. According to Ferber, we had a little "trained night feeder" on our hands. (Or was I the one trained?)

So last Thursday night Scott and I decided to start the tough love. We were instructed to feed Ian gradually smaller amounts at gradually increased intervals as the nights went on. I braced for up to two weeks of sleepless nights, and while Thursday night was hard, it got almost immediatly better.

Sunday night was the first night Ian slept straight through. And he has repeated the performance with amazing predictability ever since. We hardly know what to do with a full night sleep around here.

I am a bit surprised how this all came about. I always thought a baby "figured out" sleep all at once... that Ian would suddenly realize (all on his own) that he could do it by himself, and then just do it from then on. But for us it came in stages, one new sleep skill at a time, and each victory toward Ian's sleep enlightenment won out of desperation by his sleep-deprived parents.

First there was the "falling alseep sans rocking" one. Then a few weeks later, sleeping unswaddled. Then most recently, not eating at night and then not waking at night. And now we are trying to get Ian down to two longer naps each day (instead of 40-minute power naps 4 times each day.) It's a process.