Let The Baby Cry, or To Ferberize or Not to Ferberize?

Friends of mind have a nine-month old baby who isn't sleeping well.  For the sake of anonymity, I'm going to call them Rich and Grace.  They are first-time parents, and like all new parents, their world has revolved around their little girl from the minute she was born.  She's been rocked to sleep every night and for every nap, and now she can't go to sleep without being held by mom or dad.  She wakes every three hours or so and protests loudly when she discovers that she's in her crib and no longer in those warm arms of her parents.  To get her back to sleep, they give her a bottle of warm formula; then she's rocked in a parent's arms again before they gingerly put her back into her crib.

Rich and Grace are exhausted.  They remind me of my sleepless nights with my first child.  At Sophia's nine-month well-visit, my partner, Dr. Katz, asked me how she was sleeping.  I admitted that I was still up every few hours and confessed that I couldn't ignore her cries at night.  He looked at me quizzically, and said, "Come on, you know what you have to do.  Put her down when she's still awake, so that she gets used to soothing herself to sleep, and don't rush to her room when she cries in the middle of the night.  And God forbid that you feed her every time she wakes up!"  I knew he was right, although that didn't stop me from feeling affronted when I read what he wrote in Sophia's chart under the "Sleep" column: "Still wakes at night; Mother can't ignore." 

But I have to admit Dr. Katz had a point.  We finally approached sleep the way the famous Dr. Ferber championed.  By ignoring Sophia's cries in the middle of the night, we trained her to sleep.  It took hardening my heart and shutting my ears to ignore her pitiful cries, and I spent some nights with my pillow over my head when I heard her crying for me.  But the torture paid off, and she learned to sleep well.  For Rich and Grace, I would tell them to place the baby in her crib when she's awake so that she learns to put herself to sleep.  For the first week, they can allow themselves to pick her up when she cries in the middle of the night.  But by no means should they continue feeding her through the night.  And after that first week, they shouldn't even go into the room.  Some pediatricians would advise going into the room every ten minutes of so just to pat the baby on the back, but I always found that showing up in Sophia's room without actually picking her up made her cry even harder.

The crying is so hard to hear, but it really doesn't do the baby any harm.  And when it does stop and the baby learns to sleep through the night, it's a blessing for everyone involved.  Imagine how good it feels to sleep through the night, I always tell parents.  Well, a baby reaps the benefits of a solid night's sleep as well.  I hope Rich, Grace and their little girl get some good sleep soon.