Cooper has been giving us some occasional trouble lately when we put him down for a nap or for bed at night. Kandis and I have a fundamental disagreement about how to address this challenge. Until a week or so, I was a hard-line believer in the “let him cry it out” philosophy. My hypothesis was that after a certain indeterminate period, Cooper would wear himself out and soothe himself to sleep. Kandis preferred a different method, which allowed him to cry for short intervals. After Cooper cried for a few minutes, we would enter his room and calm him down, then leave the room. Within a minute or so, he’d be crying again, and we’d repeat the process. Kandis indicated to me that the method we were employing was documented. While I believed her, I didn’t think that our application of the method was effective — at least in Cooper’s case. Each time we entered his room, we were perpetuating more of the same behavior. We were following a process that corresponded to Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity.
I searched online to learn more about “crying it out,” and stumbled upon the Ferber CIO Method. It is quite similar to the approach we were already using, though it appears that the intervals we were using were too short and fixed. (The short length may have been due in part to my impatience.) The Ferber method prescribes a starting interval of three minutes, followed by five minutes, then ten on the first night. On subsequent nights, those intervals increase.
I’ve had a couple of opportunities over the past week to be alone with Cooper, and put him down for his nap without anyone else around. At this point, I feel comfortable enough as a father that I know Cooper’s various types of cries. I can tell his startled cry from his sad cry from his fussy-angry cry. Armed with that level of comfort, and taking Cooper’s age into account, I decided to apply the recommended intervals for the second day. Here are my experiences:
- On my first day alone, I put him down, then let him cry for five minutes before going in to soothe him. When I left, he began crying again. Next, my plan was to wait for ten minutes, but he fell asleep after eight minutes.
- Today was my second opportunity to put him down for a nap without intervention. I put him down, and he started crying within a minute. I stuck to the five minute interval the first time. He stopped crying in about five minutes. It wasn’t a gradual calming; the crying stopped suddenly and he fell asleep.
I now realize that my old “cry it out for hour on end” philosophy might have worked, but it would have been a callous approach. Kandis brought a solid alternative to the table, and I took advantage of the one-on-one time I had with Cooper to tweak the method Kandis proposed.
The difficult part now is that my crying threshold is greater than Kandis’. Coming to a compromise there may be the most difficult part of this learning experience.
Cooper has been giving us some occasional trouble lately when we put him down for a nap or for bed at night. Kandis and I have a fundamental disagreement about how to address this challenge. Until a week or so, I was a hard-line believer in the “let him cry it out” philosophy. My hypothesis was that after a certain indeterminate period, Cooper would wear himself out and soothe himself to sleep. Kandis preferred a different method, which allowed him to cry for short intervals. After Cooper cried for a few minutes, we would enter his room and calm him down, then leave the room. Within a minute or so, he’d be crying again, and we’d repeat the process. Kandis indicated to me that the method we were employing was documented. While I believed her, I didn’t think that our application of the method was effective — at least in Cooper’s case. Each time we entered his room, we were perpetuating more of the same behavior. We were following a process that corresponded to Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity.
I searched online to learn more about “crying it out,” and stumbled upon the Ferber CIO Method. It is quite similar to the approach we were already using, though it appears that the intervals we were using were too short and fixed. (The short length may have been due in part to my impatience.) The Ferber method prescribes a starting interval of three minutes, followed by five minutes, then ten on the first night. On subsequent nights, those intervals increase.
I’ve had a couple of opportunities over the past week to be alone with Cooper, and put him down for his nap without anyone else around. At this point, I feel comfortable enough as a father that I know Cooper’s various types of cries. I can tell his startled cry from his sad cry from his fussy-angry cry. Armed with that level of comfort, and taking Cooper’s age into account, I decided to apply the recommended intervals for the second day. Here are my experiences:
I now realize that my old “cry it out for hour on end” philosophy might have worked, but it would have been a callous approach. Kandis brought a solid alternative to the table, and I took advantage of the one-on-one time I had with Cooper to tweak the method Kandis proposed.
The difficult part now is that my crying threshold is greater than Kandis’. Coming to a compromise there may be the most difficult part of this learning experience.