Usenet Writings

Why I Needed to Make Him Sleep!

©1994 Beth Weiss, Posted to misc.kids Usenet newsgroup, January 21, 1994

My son was 18 months old when I wrote this; I was looking back at some of those early sleepless weeks.

For many people, not wanting to lose one's own sleep is not so much selfishness but self-preservation.  Sufficient sleep is necessary in order to function effectively during the day.  Without adequate sleep, I can't concentrate.  That means I don't do my job well, it means I'm not a safe driver.  Without adequate sleep , I'm crabby and irritable, and tend to want to keep to myself, instead of interacting pleasantly with my husband and child. 

When I was breastfeeding, and my son woke to be nursed 4-5 times in the night, as well was wanting to be nursed every 2 hours around the clock, I was totally exhausted--and I resented his demands.  He didn't need to be nursed 4-5 times a night; it was a habit he developed when he temporarily shared a room with us while we were on vacation.  I knew he didn't need that much food; he was 6 months old, about 18 pounds, and had been sleeping through the night just fine until we went on vacation.

I couldn't be the type of parent I want to be while under that much stress--and total exhaustion.  For some parents in that situation, a family bed is the solution (and some people suggested it to me).  But for us, it wasn't what we wanted.   So I turned to Ferber (Richard Ferber, How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems).

Ferber's book talks a great deal about sleep associations--the situation which a child needs to create in order to fall asleep. Jordan had developed a sleep association which involved me--and my breasts.  Like all healthy sleepers, he woke several times in the night.  But, since his sleep association involved nursing, he needed to recreate the nursing situation in order to fall asleep again.  And so we used the method Ferber discusses method to help him learn a new sleep association--one that he could re-create in the middle of the night without a parent there.

By periodically comforting him as he tried to fall asleep without breastfeeding, he learned how to fall asleep in his crib, with his pacifier and Wolf.  Within days, he was able to put himself to sleep after waking briefly in the night.  As a result, all three of us were able to sleep better--and were happier and more alert during the day.

The cost of that was that Jordan cried intermittently for 40 minutes one night, with his Daddy repeatedly going in to comfort him and assure him that we loved him.  And that was 40 difficult minutes. But it in terms of crying time, I'm sure that there has been less total crying for Jordan due to those 40 minutes.  He can put himself to sleep when he wakes in the night, and so he doesn't have to cry at all most nights.  [note: there are still some night wakings, but they are relatively few, and usually are due to Jordan not being able to find one of his half-dozen pacifiers]

I didn't, and still don't, think of our decision to use Ferber's controlled crying technique as selfish.  I think of it as a well-reasoned, logical response to a situation that we couldn't live with--and all three members of our have benefited from that decision.