Why does a child wake up at night and cannot sleep for a long time? How we normalized a baby's night sleep in just three days using the protracted wait method.
Until eight months, my son slept all night, waking up only once to eat. This was spectacular! But one day everything changed. One night, he woke up at two in the morning and woke up the whole family. And off we go ... He began to wake up at night almost every hour. And my husband and I completely stopped sleeping. I had to urgently do something.
We started by looking for a reason. A few days ago, I started putting my son to sleep in my arms (he used to fall asleep while feeding). There were no more changes, which means that it was because of this that our night's sleep deteriorated. But why? Trying to figure it out, I came across a book by the famous American expert on children's sleep, Richard Ferber, “The Dream of a Child. The solution to all problems ”. I read the reviews about his method, and they were impressive: many moms took only a week for their children to learn to sleep peacefully until the morning! The next day I bought a book.
Why does the child wake up
Ferber believes that waking up between sleep phases is absolutely normal for everyone, both adults and children. But if, waking up at night, an adult immediately falls asleep, then the child does not always succeed. Why? The fact is that in order to fall asleep after waking up at night, children need the same conditions in which he fell asleep in the evening. That is, if in the evening the mother put the baby to sleep in her arms, then at night she will have to get up to repeat this manipulation - otherwise the child will simply not fall asleep. Ferber calls this "negative sleep associations." And the solution is simple: to teach the baby to fall asleep on their own using the method of protracted waiting.
The lingering wait method
At the usual time for falling asleep, you need to put the child in a crib and conduct an evening ritual. It can be anything, like reading a book, singing a song, or just patting the head. After that, you need to turn off the light, leave the room and close the door.
The most important thing on the first day is not to return to the baby earlier than 3 minutes later, even if he starts crying. After this time, you need to go into the room, calm the baby and go out again. The second time you need to return to the child after 5 minutes, the third and subsequent - after 7. If the baby wakes up at night - put in the same way.
The intervals between visits should be increased daily by several minutes. On the second day, the intervals are 5/7/10 minutes, on the third day they are 7/10/12, and so on, until you get to 20/25/30.
Of course, before starting, I had my doubts. And child psychologists unanimously argue that a crying child cannot be ignored. But Ferber's book provides a lot of differences between this method and the outdated and cruel one “he whines and falls asleep”.
My husband and I nevertheless decided, but with one caveat: if after the third call our son does not fall asleep, we stop the experiment and put him to bed as usual. We reassured ourselves that 15 minutes of screaming is not so much, it is unlikely that they will somehow affect his mental health.
Method comparison table
| The lingering wait method | Method "Let it shout" | |
|---|---|---|
| The reason for falling asleep | Calming down ("Parents are visiting, everything is fine!") | Despair ("I was abandoned!") And powerlessness from screaming |
| The habit of falling asleep | On my own | After screaming |
| Impact on nighttime awakenings | The child himself "glues" the phases of sleep, because woke up in the same conditions in which he fell asleep | The child himself "glues" the phases of sleep, because woke up in the same conditions in which he fell asleep |
| Psychological trauma | Unlikely: the child sees that the parents are calling | Likely: the child feels abandoned |
Go!
1 day. After sprinkling kisses on my son, I left the room at exactly 21:00, closed the door tightly and timed it. For the first 3 minutes, he whimpered quietly. But after my first visit, he got into a real hysterics. The next 5 minutes were very hard for me: I wanted to howl out loud with my son, but I still held out. And after the third call, a miracle happened: he calmed down and fell asleep! And most importantly, it was the first night in the last month that he slept until morning with one break for feeding.
2nd day. The first interval between calls was 5 minutes, but the son began to whimper only at the very end. And after my first visit, he calmed down and fell asleep. But during the night he woke up 2 times, and I could not stand it and again took him in my arms. It was my mistake, but remembering the results of the first night, we decided to continue.
3rd day. I left my son in the crib for 7 minutes, and he never cried! Calmly waited for my first visit, received my portion of tenderness and immediately fell asleep. We slept all night, and only in the morning did my son wake up for feeding, after which he slept for several more hours. It looked like a fairy tale!
Result
After the third day, we did not increase the intervals between visits. Basically, my baby falls asleep without any whims even before the first call. But it also happens that after 7-10 minutes he starts to whimper - then I go in, calm him down, kiss him, and he falls asleep.
We had night awakenings twice in all the time: on the second night and on the seventh. I again had to rock my son in my arms. But then our sleep pattern returned to normal: as before, the child began to sleep from 9:00 pm to 8:00 am with one break for feeding. Now we get enough sleep again!
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