Hello all,
I've been reading all these posts about ferberization, and I agree fully
that this is some kind of child abuse. The problem is I've heard it
recomended at a medical conference, by a sleep medicine specialist (MD), as
a treatment for babies' sleep problems - so I suspect this may be another
case of MDs advocating things like "nurse every four hrs, ten minutes each
side, then offer supplement". The sleep specialist backed his advice with
research, proving this to be the correct solution.
I never did this with any of my four children, even though all of them
never fell asleep in their own bed till about 3-4-5 yrs old, all of them
woke several times a night and had to be picked up, nursed, or taken to our
bed to the same age. Most of the people who heard about this (after a while
I just stopped talking about it) told me I did everything wrong, but I am
happy to say that all of my kids (but the youngest - so far) grew out of
this without ferberizing, just by themselves. I have no idea how...
I recomend an exellent article about how wrong ferberization is at:
http://www.slate.com/Earthling/97-03-27/Earthling.asp
On the other hand I was once told by a wise old pediatrician - don't expect
everyone to do as you do. There might be parents who cannot cope with not
getting a nights rest for years, and the abuse a child may suffer from an
overtired, nervous, desperate parent might be no less than "sleep
training". I find it very hard to recomend, but I try to remember that my
way is probably not the only one.
I wish you all a good night (everybody in this house is sleeping, so far....)
Mira Leibovich, MD