The Ferber Method is Very Beneficial
There seems to be debate on the “right” method of parenting when it comes to how a child should be put to bed and learn to sleep on their own. When I was planning for my first child, I was not sure on which method was going to be best for us. I read a lot about the different methods and had some mixed thoughts. I felt like letting my child cry could be a form of neglect, but on the contrary, I did not want to teach my child to only fall asleep while being held, rocked, nursed or in my bed. I wanted to allow my child to learn to fall asleep on his own and to self soothe, should he wake up in the middle of the night, as we all do. After much thought, I came to the conclusion that The Ferber Method, using
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Richard Ferber, the creator of The Ferber Method, refers to it (The Ferber Method Demystified). Ferber works at Children’s Hospital in Boston, as the director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders. In 1985, he wrote the book Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, which was revised in 2006 (About.com The Ferber Method – Dr. Ferber’s Sleep Book). The book explains that allowing your child to fall asleep on their own teaches them to build independence and how to self soothe. A child is capable of learning these skills around the ages of 4-6 months of age. (The Ferber Method Demystified). It is recommended to create a routine that occurs nightly at bedtime, such as a bath, singing a favorite nursery rhyme or anything quiet. Repeating this action will reinforce to your child that sleep comes after you complete this activity. All of these activities should be done in a loving manner, and used as bonding time with your child. Once the child has wound down, but not fallen asleep, you should bring him to his room and put him down. It is very important that the child is awake when being put in his bed. Ferber preaches a routine called progressive waiting. This practice is allowing …show more content…
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Each year at least 40 million Americans suffer from long term, persistent sleep disorders, and an additional 20 million experience occasional sleeping problems. About 60 million Americans a year have insomnia and it tends to increase with age and affects about 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men. It is estimated that 18 million Americas are suffering from sleep apnea, 12 million have RLS, and 250,000 are affected by narcolepsy. Adults typically need between 6 and 10 hours of sleep per 24 hour period, and most people need approximately 8 hours of sleep per day. Infants generally need about 16 hours per day; whereas, teenagers require 9 hours on average. In the first 3 months of...
Karp, Harvey. The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Baby Sleep Longer. New York, NY: Bantam, 2002. Print.
When/if I have a baby, I will not have him/her sleep with my husband and I in the same bed. I probably would be the same as my mother and not get any sleep and become paranoid with the risk of my husband or I rolling over our baby. When he/she gets older and has nightmares and needs that security I will let him/her sleep with my husband and I. In addition, I feel like the child needs to be able to be independent and sleep on their own. In my sources, I have learned many things. I was very surprised with the study of how early co-sleepers show more independence and self-reliance than children who sleep in the crib by themselves. I also learned that there could be some advantages to co-sleeping, like it is easier for the mother to breastfeed since the child is right next to the parents. If you feel like co-sleeping is the best choice, then that is your choice. You, do
Sara believed that it was important for the infant to establish a sense of security by sleeping in the same room as the parents early on, so that in the future when the child becomes old enough to sleep in a different room, the child will feel secure and be calm even when she is alone by knowing that her parents are just in the other room. One way to understand the link between Sara’s sleeping arrangements and her goal of making the infant feel more secure is to consider Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development (Erikson, 1963) The first stage of Erikson’s (1963) theory is trust versus mistrust, during which babies come to trust that their caregivers and other people will meet their physical and emotional needs or start to mistrust that the parents and other people will not take care of them. Sara hoped that by sleeping near her infant so that she could let her child see her when the child goes to sleep or wakes up in the middle of the night, the infant could feel more safe, or “trust,” that the infant’s needs would be tended to whenever necessary. The “trust” would then impact the child’s future development and especially when the time comes for the child to move to a separate room. The child, having received reliable
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The short-term benefits to infants of co-sleeping with their mothers would be increase breast feeding which promotes bed-sharing, increase sleep interval and duration, less crying time, increase compassion to mother’s communication (McKenna, Mosko , & Richard, pg. 604). Short-term benefits to mothers who co-sleep with their infants would be more sleep time with gratification, increase sensitization to infant’s physiological-social status, increase wellbeing and the ability to understand developmental signals from the infant, and improved skill to supervise and accomplish infant wants (McKenna, Mosko , & Richard, pg. 604). Long-term benefits of co-sleeping for infants are under-represented, but it can spread relief with sexual identity, infants become independent and increase control of their reactions and anxiety, and they become more self-determining in task problem solving and initiating because they are better at being unaccompanied (McKenna, Mosko , & Richard, pg. 604). Parents should know the benefits of co-sleeping either long-term or
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John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, he describes attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (Bowlby, 1969, p.194), he believed that the earliest bonds that were formed between child and caregiver has a huge impact that continues throughout the infants life. Attachment is said to help keep the infant close to their mother, so it improves the child’s chance of survival.
New parents often wonder when the best time is to train a baby to sleep through the night.
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