So, all in all, Ferberizing has been great...pretty much the best thing we've done for Audrey as far as sleep goes. She's sleeping in her own crib all night, AND she naps in her crib as well (yaaay!). However, I failed to see the importance of eliminating the pacifier at the same time. I felt like it would be too much all at once for her. Well, it has really become her only sleep association. Herein lies the problem...when she wakes at night and loses the paci, it upsets her. And I'm lying there realizing that all I have to do is go put it back in. And it worked well becuase I'd only have to do it once and she was back asleep...until maye an hour or two later. So I wasn't really Ferberizing...I mean, why let her cry for 3, 5, 10 minutes when I KNOW the only thing she needs is the paci? Now, I do do not mind getting up a few times to replace the paci at all. However, this is not helping her get back to sleep on her own as we had originally intended with starting this whole process.
The goal of Ferber is to eliminate their sleep associations so that when they wake at night (as we all do) their environment has not changed and they can more easily fall back to sleep. I love the analogy Ferber has in his book. If you fell asleep every night with a nice comfy pillow and then at some point during the night someone came in and stole it, you'd be like..."WTF, where's my pillow?" and you'd totally wake up trying to find and get all riled up, unable to fall back asleep very easily. However, if you had to start the night falling asleep without your pillow, yeah it would suck the first few nights...you'd be all uncomfortable, toss and turn, complain, etc. But eventually you'd fall sleep and get used to it. Basically we want the condition to which Audrey falls asleep to be the same as when she wakes up so that there are no surprises, nothing has changed.
So nights 4 & 5 were ok as far as her initially going to sleep. Very little (1-2 minutes) or no crying. But she woke up a couple times for the paci each night and that's when I realized I wasn't really Ferberizing anymore. So I made the decision to start all over again, but this time eliminate the paci. Yikes. I decided to start with this morning's nap. Get it over with! I put her down while she was all happy and smiley. She cried for 3 minutes. I left and she cried for exactly 5 minutes, but this time it was on and off. Right at 5 minutes she fell asleep (hello!! this is a total repeat of her first few days of Ferber!) I'm glad this mornings nap went so well, but I'm very anxious to see what tonight holds. I expect her to cry for 8 minutes at bedtime, but what about when she wakes at night? I'm hoping there's no more than 8 minutes of crying as well.
As I've said, I do love Ferber's method...it works...but it only works as well as you can follow the plan. If you want your baby to associate falling asleep with a paci, then by all means, keep the paci. But Audrey can't reinsert by herself yet. And honestly, why not break the paci habit now? Wish us luck tonight!!
