Ferberization

What a busy month. You'll have noticed the absence of regular posts. Most of you will have stopped even checking the blog. Yeah, well. We're back. We took a break -- or at least, I took a break -- mostly because of the gathering exhaustion that looking after a small baby seems to generate.

Max never slept. Friends sent us the cute obligatory photos of their babies, sleeping in the bath, or in a pile of fresh laundry, or in a high chair in the middle of eating. It never happened with Max. Never. Never happened. He was like a ninja: always alert, always ready to pounce. And we indulged him. At night we rocked him to sleep and held him in our arms. If he woke up, we would run to calm him. He ruled the house, like a tiny bad-tempered emperor who should not be disobeyed. His rule was bloody, that's for sure.

Finally, and fortunately, things devolved enough that we were sleeping two hours a night. Max was sick and couldn't breathe well and he'd wake up if we even stopped rocking him for a moment. Something had to be done. So last week we sleep-trained him. We used the Ferber technique, which is well-described all over the place but email me if you want information. For a first-time parent, it's a huge deal: the guilt, the crying, the urge to pick him up, the hope that it works. A misinformed friend told me it was torture. We did it anyway. Within three nights Max was sleeping for hours at a time in his own cot. On the fourth night he slept for eleven hours without making any noise. We have a new baby.

Thank you, Dr Ferber. If I could, I think I would kiss you.