Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems Quotes

“In later years, your child will still appreciate having some time with you before he goes to sleep. He needs close, warm, personal time , something that simply watching television together, for instance, will not provide: even if the shows are not exciting or scary —which is unlikely— and even if you are sitting next to him, the lack of direct personal interaction makes this bedtime routine a poor one. Instead, use the time to discuss school events, plans for the weekend, soccer, dance class, after-school programs, or music lessons. It might also be helpful to talk about any worries your child may have, so he will be less likely to brood over them in bed.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

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― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“The Barrier or Boundary: General Considerations The cornerstone of setting limits at night is ensuring that your child stays in the room where he should be sleeping. If he doesn’t stay in the room, you can’t enforce any nighttime rules at all; to enforce them, you must be prepared to use a barrier. Taking him back to his room over and over is not effective—in fact, he will probably perceive it as a game, especially if he has to be chased around the house, or if he can sneak out of the room when you’re not watching. Threats and punishments are counterproductive: a young child should not be punished for a lack of self-control at night, when self-control is hardest. Do not insist that your child take on a job that he cannot yet handle; you must take it over for him. If you dislike the idea of having a barrier, remember that in any case your young child cannot be allowed to wander freely around the house while you sleep. He may usually go to your room, true, but he could just as easily go somewhere more hazardous, such as the kitchen. He may also be confused in the middle of the night, half-awake and unsure of where he is going and why, and that will put him at additional risk. (Some children consciously and intentionally head away from their parents at night so they can do things that they are not normally allowed to do.) A strategically placed gate at the top of the stairs or in the hallway will keep your child in a restricted part of the house and probably safe. But you are still better off requiring him to stay in the room where he sleeps and putting the gate at the doorway of that room to enforce the rule.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If he is able to leave his room (or follow you out of your shared room), the problem becomes a little harder. No matter how much he yells, how strong he is, or how well he can climb, you must be stronger than he is. If he ends up in control instead of you, the only lesson he will learn is that he can always get his way. Thus, if he starts coming out of his room when you refuse to keep going in, you may have to put up a gate. (You may have to do that even if he sleeps in your bed, if he follows you out of the room.) If he can kick down the gate, you may have to screw it into the door frame. If he can climb over it, you may have to put up a double gate—two gates, one above the other—until he agrees to stop climbing. If he can get over a double gate, you may have to start closing the door. Do whatever it takes to enforce the rule, just as you would if he tried to play with matches. You must win because it will actually be scary for him if you do not. Only when you have successfully settled the issue will he see that you are really in charge; only then can he stop trying to find ways to outsmart you; only then can he stop worrying about whether you will respond supportively or angrily; and only then can he see that you are really taking care of him. Finally, then, he can relax, with no job to do except to go to sleep, and the matter is solved.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“William’s difficulties were typical. He was a three-and-a-half-year-old who had always had trouble settling at bedtime and during the night. Six months before I saw him he had moved from a crib into a bed, and his bedtime rituals had changed: instead of rocking him to sleep, his parents would lie down with him for a while. He usually fell asleep fairly quickly, although if his parents tried to leave his bed too soon he would wake up. Once he was deeply asleep, they could quietly sneak away. William would sleep for three or four hours, then wake up and call for his parents. He sometimes complained about being scared or seeing monsters, but he never seemed truly frightened. If his parents didn’t answer his calls, he grew more demanding; sometimes he went to their room and refused to return to his bed. William’s parents, concerned about what they interpreted as nighttime anxiety, always took him back to his bed and lay down with him, knowing he would go back to sleep in five or ten minutes and then they could sneak away again. Usually he would wake up one or two more times and repeat the whole routine. But occasionally one of the parents fell asleep in William’s bed, and when that happened, William slept through the rest of the night without difficulty. William’s problem, like Betsy’s, was not abnormal wakings but inappropriate associations: he could not fall asleep unless one of his parents was lying down with him. And that was a problem for William’s parents, because they wanted to sleep by themselves, in their own bed.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“Eventually he will simply find it preferable to go back to sleep than to cry for fifteen or twenty minutes knowing he won’t be rewarded with rocking, holding, or nursing. At the same time, he is learning to fall asleep, and feel comfortable, alone in the crib or bed.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“It is not practice in crying but practice in falling asleep under new conditions that a child needs to learn. If you are going to rock your baby to sleep in the end, you would do better to rock him at once and skip the crying altogether.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“On the second day of the program, Betsy’s parents were to start with a five-minute wait and work up to a maximum wait of twelve minutes.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“At nap times, Betsy’s parents would use the same routine. But if after half an hour Betsy had either cried the whole time or had fallen asleep and wakened again, they would end that nap period.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If Betsy was still asleep at 7:00 A.M., they would get her up no matter how much she’d been awake during the night.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If later in the night Betsy woke up and began crying hard again, they would restart the same pattern as at bedtime, waiting for three minutes, then five minutes, and working back up to ten minutes.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“At any point, if she stopped crying or subsided to mild whimpering between checks, they were not to go back in:”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“Also, don’t allow naps to run so late (past 4:00 P.M., perhaps) that they will interfere with falling asleep at night.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“Use the same waiting schedule for naps, but if your child has not fallen asleep after half an hour, or if he is awake again and calling or crying vigorously after even a short period of sleep, end that nap time.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If your child wakes during the night, restart the schedule with the minimum waiting time for that night and work up to the maximum again from there.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“Each time you go to your child, spend no more than one or two minutes with him. Remember, your job is to reassure him (and yourself), not necessarily to help him stop crying, and certainly not to help him fall asleep: the goal is for him to learn to fall asleep on his own.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“In particular, there should be no sneaking about. Sneaking away from a child at night does not foster trust, and a sense of trust is important for good sleep.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If you can figure out why your child is sleeping poorly and make the necessary changes, he should be sleeping well much sooner—usually within a few days, two weeks at the most.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“So if you are beginning to address a sleep problem in your child, be sure to set up a firm schedule and stick to it rigorously for several weeks after your child has begun sleeping well again.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“So don’t let your two- or three-year-old decide what time he should go to bed—many would wait until they were so sleepy they could not stay awake any longer. Before long his schedule would be disrupted, becoming inconsistent and unpredictable”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“It is equally important to help our children maintain consistent schedules through infancy, childhood, and adolescence.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If instead you allow the times of your child’s feedings, playtimes, baths, and other activities to change constantly, chances are his sleep will become irregular as well.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“By three or four months of age they will be getting most of their sleep at night, usually including an unbroken stretch of five to nine hours.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“But failing to take the children’s individual needs into account does not do them justice. There is no reason the child with the shorter sleep requirement should stay in bed longer than he needs to, for example, just because his brother sleeps later.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“But by about three months of age most full-term healthy infants are able to sleep through most of the night. If your baby still has more than one or two nightly wakings at that age, or if he still hasn’t “settled” (started sleeping through the entire night) by five or six months, then you should take a close look at his bedtime routines.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“The term circadian rhythms refers to biological cycles that repeat about every twenty-four hours.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“When the baby is around three months old, daytime sleep settles into a three-nap pattern, with the main naps in the midmorning and midafternoon and, generally, a brief nap in the early evening.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“Thus, in children, the first three or four hours of the night are spent mainly in very deep sleep from which the child is not easily roused. Parents are often aware of this fact, because the period of lighter sleep that follows, with more frequent wakings, may well begin at about the time they are going to sleep themselves.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“A newborn enters REM sleep immediately after falling asleep. By about three months of age she will enter non-REM first, a pattern that will continue for the rest of her life.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“If you think it’s tolerable that your four-year-old son comes into your bed each night, against your will, and kicks you or your partner until one of you has to move to another room, then you may not understand the importance of setting and enforcing rules. The same could be said if you see nothing wrong with letting your child determine when and where he will eat, what television shows he will watch, and when he goes to bed, or if you believe you should always buy him anything he wants (to keep him from throwing tantrums in public, perhaps).”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems