Ferber Method: Guide to effective sleep training for babies
Desperate for a good night's sleep but can't bear to hear your baby cry for more than a few minutes? The Ferber Method of sleep training could be the solution.
Found yourself Googling "Can you die of sleep deprivation?" and feeling increasingly depressed about going to bed each night because your baby's regular nighttime wakings are becoming unbearable? You're not alone and if your baby is over 4 months old and you'd do anything for a good night's sleep then maybe you're ready to try a sleep training method.
The idea of letting your baby cry it out though might feel even more unbearable than the lack of sleep. This is where The Ferber Method comes in. While the method does involve some level of self-soothing and short stints of crying, it's also known as graduated extinction or graduated crying-it-out as it's a gentler method of letting your baby learn to get back to sleep without your help.
Ready to catch some zzzzs? Our guide below will tell you everything you need to know about The Ferber Method of sleep training, help you decide if it's right for you and guide you through the process of "ferberising" your baby one step at a time. You'll also find a handy chart to follow for when you're so tired you can barely open your eyes!
What is the Ferber Method?
The Ferber Method is a sleep training routine that was created by Richard Ferber, a physician and the director of The Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at the Children's Hospital Boston in the USA. He outlined the method in his best-selling book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems which was published in 1985.
Ferber updated the book and method in 2006 and his strategy to help babies sleep is still as popular with sleep-deprived parents 4 decades on. In a nutshell, the method uses gradually increasing increments of "controlled crying" time to allow babies to learn to self-soothe without causing distress to either baby or parent.
The good news is that it's a super simple, yet effective method, that's easy to stick to once you know the timings and doesn't require any brain power from frazzled parents. The method is designed to help babies learn to self-soothe gradually so that they eventually know how to get themselves back to sleep in the middle of the night without screaming the house down or relying on external help.
How does the Ferber Method work?
The Ferber Method is very straightforward – you simply allow your baby to cry for gradually increasing amounts of time before you go and soothe them, starting with a very manageable 3-minute stint. You should start the method after your child's usual bedtime routine (bath, book, bed etc.) and ensure you put your baby down in the cot when they are drowsy and tired but not fully asleep. Then leave the room and start up that stopwatch. If they don't cry, then happy days! If they do, wait for exactly three minutes and then head back into their room to soothe them.
The way you soothe your baby is important too – it can involve patting or stroking them and talking in a soothing voice but shouldn't involve picking them up and cuddling them, turning on the light or feeding them. After a short time (you should try not to be soothing for more than a minute or two) leave the room again and this time set the stopwatch for 5 minutes. This part of the method is called progressive waiting and, while Ferber's time intervals are good guides, it's important to make the wait intervals work for you and your baby. So if for example baby is really upset after 1 minute go and soothe, but try and make the next wait a bit longer, maybe 3 minutes.
Ferber suggests you continue the method of progressive waiting on Day 1 until you reach a 10-minute wait interval. At this point each time you leave the room wait another 1o minutes until you're confident baby is asleep and content. If your baby wakes up again in the night start the method again from the first 3-minute wait.
On Day 2 the wait times increase ever so slightly to 5 minutes for the first check, 10 minutes for the second check and 12 minutes for the third. And then on Day 3 it's 10 minutes, 12 minutes and 15 minutes. The Ferber Method sets out timings for up to a week (see our Ferber Method chart below) but a lot of parents and sleep experts find that by the end of Day 3 progress has usually been made.
The Ferber Method isn't just for nighttime wakings either. You can use the same method to encourage baby to nap in their cot successfully during the day too. However, as naps are shorter you may need to adjust the check-in times and make them shorter in wait length. Try to allow enough time between the nap and the bedtime routine to ensure that a late running nap doesn't play havoc with your Ferber sleep training in the evening.
Does the Ferber Method work?
The main questions most parents will be asking before they embark on this sleep training is: Does the Ferber Method actually work? The good news is that research1 and 14 studies involving 748 participants show the method is effective in reducing bedtime problems and/or night wakings, especially if parents are consistent and follow the approach to the letter.
How long does the Ferber method take to work?
As will everything baby-related it depends on the child in question! However many parents see a real improvement in their baby's ability to self-soothe by day 3, while some take a little longer, around a week. Remember once you've cracked it though that doesn't mean your child will sleep like a dream for the rest of their infancy. Using the Ferber Method doesn't mean sleep regressions won't happen or that your baby will start becoming fussy at night again when they're teething, growing or unwell. However, it's a great method to revisit once your baby is over any of these leaps or changes as a way of getting back into a good routine.
When to Start the Ferber Method
So what age is it appropriate to start the Ferber method with your baby? The general rule of thumb is that if your baby is younger than 6 months old you shouldn't think about introducing any sleep training. Research shows that babies this young won't respond to training and when they're really little their cries will often be because they need milk or a change of nappy.
Current NHS guidelines2 state that babies should sleep in a cot, crib or Moses basket on their back in the same room as you for all their sleeps until they are 6 months old and many sleep experts don't advocate any sleep training methods until this age too. So, when your little one reaches 6 months and you're considering moving them to their own room, this could be a good time to think about sleep training.
Tips for using the Ferber sleep method
- Choose the right time: Ok, so there's never really a "right time" to start a new routine with a baby, but have a look at your calendar and set aside some days when you're going to be at home and when baby will be in their own bedroom for the duration. If you have any upcoming holidays, trips away, work projects or big life events, like moving house, it's not a good time to start sleep training.
- Be as consistent as possible: Consistency is key to success when it comes to any sort of sleep training as then your baby will start to understand the patterns and your responses. If one night you follow the method perfectly but the next you start picking baby up and changing the wait times all the progress of the previous night will be lost.
- Don't go it alone: To help you stick to the method it's important to enlist help and have the support when every fibre in your body is telling you to not wait the three minutes and go and cuddle your baby instead. Doing the method together also means your partner can take over when you're exhausted or you can go to another room if the crying is really getting to you.
- Give your baby a chance: It can be tempting to respond to the very first signs of noise from your baby when they wake up but for the Ferber Method to work you need to give your baby a chance to self-soothe. If you're not able to just sit outside and listen to them making noises, invest in a high-quality video baby monitor so you can watch them like a hawk without disturbing them.
- Have a bedtime schedule: It's a good idea to have a regular bedtime routine from very early on in your baby's life, so they get used to the difference between night and day. Before you embark on The Ferber Method be sure to set up a bedtime routine that your baby knows and responds to – bath, book, bed is the tried-and-tested formula!
- Stop if it isn't working for baby or you: If either you or your baby is finding the process too stressful and is getting distressed by it – stop! Some babies will not respond to the Ferber Method and likewise, some parents might find not immediately responding to their baby's cries too difficult.
Is the Ferber Method harmful?
More research still needs to be done on the effects, with positive and negative of sleep training methods. However, one study that involved 178 babies concluded that cry-it-out sleep training methods, including The Ferber Method, aren't harmful to babies either physically, behaviourally or emotionally. These children also didn't have any differences in their attachment to their parents at 18 months of age when compared to babies that hadn't experienced any form of sleep training.
Another study4 also showed that babies of parents who had used a sleep training method did sleep longer and without any negative side effects.
However, a different paper concluded that there's a lack of evidence currently either for or against the method and that future research "should compare the effectiveness of various behavioural sleep training
methods as well as their possible harmful effects."5
In a nutshell, there's not enough evidence either way, so use your parenting intuition to work out what's best for you and your baby. Although it can feel like you'll never sleep again, the baby phase does fly by and you'll be enjoying a good night's sleep in the not-so-distant future!
References:
1 Behavioral Treatment of Bedtime Problems and Night Wakings in Infants and Young Children, Jodi A. Mindell, PhD1,4; Brett Kuhn, PhD2; Daniel S. Lewin, PhD3; Lisa J. Meltzer, PhD4; Avi Sadeh, DSc5
2 Helping your baby to sleep, NHS Online
3 Kahn M, Barnett N, Gradisar M. Implementation of Behavioral Interventions for Infant Sleep Problems in Real-World Settings. J Pediatr. 2023 Apr;255:137-146.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2022.10.038. Epub 2022 Nov 12. PMID: 36375604.
4 Bilgin A, Wolke D. Parental use of 'cry it out' in infants: no adverse effects on attachment and behavioural development at 18 months. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2020 Nov;61(11):1184-1193. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13223. Epub 2020 Mar 10. PMID: 32155677.
5 Smith, Bobbi, "The Ferber Method and Other Behavioral Sleep Training Methods: Do They Disrupt Attachment and Impact Physical and Psychological Wellbeing?" (2016). Nursing Masters. Paper 31.
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