Sleep Methods for Older Babies

The following three methods have proven effective in helping parents instill good sleep habits in their wakeful infants. Physical causes of night waking, such as ear infections, must be ruled out before using these techniques. These are designed to teach a baby to put herself to sleep and back to sleep rather than depending on parental assistance (such as rocking, singing, feeding) to fall asleep at night.

QUICK CHECK METHOD
(Developed by Charles Schaefer and Michael Petronko)

1. After a comforting bedtime ritual (patting or rubbing the back, soothing music, etc.) parents leave the baby's bedroom while the infant is still awake. If the baby associates falling asleep with the parent's presence, the baby will cry out; this is a pattern you do not want to establish.

2. The parent waits 15 to 20 minutes before responding to a baby's cry after being put down. The parent enters the child's room to quickly check (less than a minute) that the child is safe and to remind the child that it is sleeptime with soothing words or a gentle pat on the back. During this check, parents should not turn on the light or pick up the infant. It is important to display a calm, firm and confident attitude at this time. A quick check every 15 to 20 minutes should be continued as long as the crying persists.

Typically, the child usually cries 1 to 2 hours the first night, slightly less the second night, and not at all by the third or fourth night.

3. Parents should keep a log of the duration and frequency of the nighttime crying in order to chart progress.

GRADUATED IGNORING
(Developed by Richard Ferber)

This approach is similar to the "Quick Check" except that the parent, on the first night of sleep training, checks on the child after only five minutes of crying, then again after 10 minutes of crying, then every 15 minutes thereafter until the child stops crying.

If the child wakes later that night with hard crying, the parent repeats the original progressive routine of 5, 10, 15, 15, 15 . . . minutes of delay in response time. On the second night the progression before responding is lengthened to 10, 15, 20, 20, 20 . . . minutes. The third night would be 15, 20, 25, 25, 25 . . . and so on. The same procedure should be used for naps, except that the nap is ended if the child has not fallen asleep after one hour.