From: dmac@julia.math.ucla.edu (saki)
Subject: Re: Sleep Question/Ferberizing
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 20:09:35 GMT

In article <29316@optima.cs.arizona.edu> bweiss@cs.arizona.edu (Beth Weiss) writes:
>If I recall your original post, your child didn't sleep through the
>night until he was 10 months old, long past the point where he needed
>night nutrition, even if he was hungry.

No question about that. I make a distinction between nutritional nursing
and *comfort nursing*---which the single middle-of-the-night nursing
certainly was for my son...not to mention for me, as I previously wrote.
I actually welcomed the chance for a little more contact with him, and
there seemed to be a clear benefit to us both.

>Diane Lin asked if you'd read Ferber's book.  I bought it last week,
>read it, and implemented the procedure (although we couldn't handle
>the 5/10/15/15 minute intervals, and went more like 3/5/5/10/10 and
>then didn't need another one)

Yes, I read the book. Ferber, of course, suggests that time sequences
may be varied as individual needs demand, but what I felt uncomfortable
with was the gradual incremental increase in the time the parent is
asked to refrain from responding to cries. I see the point, and I have no
doubt it works for many people. But again, this method was not my choice, 
and my post was in response to a woman who also indicated she was not
enamored of "Ferberization", as it's come to be called.

>1) What you are doing to "help" your child cope with waking up is
>actually _causing_ the waking.  

I appreciate Ferber's theory, but I don't accept it as provable or
valid in all cases. Sleep cycles differ from child to child. Some
babies wake in the night because of hunger, temperature, discomfort,
or anomalies in REM patterns. I doubt, for my own situation, that
the baby *wakened himself* in order to receive expected comfort from
me. Once he was awake, it was my decision to respond as I've outlined.
Ferber might disagree; but Ferber is not rearing my child. :-)

>2) When you use his method what you are teaching your child to do is
>to fall sleep without your help.  He makes an analogy to an adult
>using a pillow, and how the adult would feel if the pillow disappeared
>in the night, and that's how I managed to think of it.

My son actually learned very well to put himself to sleep, at his
established bedtime. What I'm talking about here is middle-of-the-
night waking, at which time my methodology (a few minutes of comfort
nursing and cuddling) sent him back to sleep for the rest of the
night...unless teething was approaching.

>3) When a child over 6 months is hungry in the night, it does mean
>he's hungry, but it's because he's _used_ to being hungry in the
>night, not because he _needs_ nutrition.

I'd actually venture to hypothesize that hunger isn't the issue;
rather, the baby seeks comfort. Had I not been nursing, or had I
been a single father, for instance, I might have selected another
method of soothing---patting, cuddling, rocking, for instance. Again
I'll emphasize that I was as much comforted by the contact as was
the baby. I'm fully aware that other parents might be better comforted
by an infant who actually *slept through* the night. :-)

>4) A child with a regular sleep pattern, and a full-night's sleep each
>night sleeps better than one who wakes up and needs intervention.  A
>child who gets enough sleep is happier and more alert than one who
>doesn't.  

Again, I'd suggest that neither Ferber nor anyone else is a better
judge than the parents about whether the baby in question "sleeps
better", or is happier, more alert, etc. "Scientific" resolution of
the "sleeps better" question could be accomplished with instrumentation
to record brain-wave patterns, but this is, of course, going to extremes.

I *can* vouch for the happiness, daytime alertness, and energy level
of my son, who thrived on this interventionist policy during his
first ten months...and now that he's 13 months (and sleeping through
the night at his own behest) he remains cheerful and healthy. In fact
he wakens in considerably finer fettle (singing, talking, amusing
himself in his crib) than do his parents...who, I should point out,
also sleep through the night.

>When I read your post originally, I felt you were somehow implying
>that parents who used Ferber didn't have the best interests of their
>child at heart, and were being cruel.  (That may not have been what
>you were saying, but it's what I felt).

I'm not surprised that you felt I was somehow "attacking" parents
who use Ferberization. I bent over nearly backwards to emphasize
that this is what works *for us*, that other cases may differ, that
illnesses change circumstances, that parents with different agendas
must choose what they think is best. If Ferberization is fine for
you, that's fine with me.

I used to wonder why misc.kids was often so incendiary; emotions
seem to run high here, more so than the newsgroup where I regularly
hang out. It took my having a baby myself to understand the dynamic,
and to give me insight as well into why strangers, in-laws, etc.,
feel compelled to give advice and to often *insist* that their
way is right. But are they really insisting, I now wonder, or
am I just hearing it that way? Am *I* the one who's overreacting?

By the time one has successfully cared for one's first newborn
for six weeks, one has become a type of expert. But at the same
time one is only beginning to see the enormous doubts that will
continue to cloud that self-assurance for the next twenty years.

Anyone whose methodology differs from mine tends to make me think,
in the back of my mind, that maybe I was *all wrong* after all...and
when my child grows up he'll tell me so in no uncertain terms. :-)
And in many people, that tends to trigger a bristling defensiveness.

I'm trying to accept the reality of my doubts---and to continue
to have some faith in the mixture of a) my academic mania for expert's
theories, and b) my own fragile intuition. One learns so much by being
a parent. Perhaps among the most valuable lessons is the fact that
parenting is a flexible, delicate dance, with many steps and
variations. A certain young gentleman who cannot yet talk will, I 
hope, one day hence tell me how well I've done. :-)