Sleep training can feel like a lightning rod topic, especially when it comes to the cry it out method.

In this episode, I talk with a mom who used extinction sleep training with both of her sons at different ages. She shares what it actually looked like night by night, why other methods did not work for her family, and how sleep training ultimately changed their home for the better.

In this conversation, we cover:

• What the extinction method actually looks like
• How long crying lasted and what progress looked like
• Why Ferber did not work for her baby
• The role of timing and developmental readiness
• When night feeds may be appropriate to drop
• Why sleep quality affects mood, tantrums, and regulation
• How to handle judgment around sleep choices

Want more? Listen to the full, ⁠original episode⁠ called Momma Needs Some Sleep! How different moms approached sleep-training where we discuss various approaches to sleep-training.

Our podcasts are also now on YouTube. If you prefer a video podcast with closed captioning, check us out there and⁠ ⁠subscribe to PedsDocTalk⁠⁠.

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00;00;00;02 – 00;00;25;03

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the follow up. It’s Doctor Mona where we revisit a favorite episode of the PedsDocTalk podcast. In less time than it takes to scroll through 47 conflicting sleep opinions at 2 a.m.. And even though I’ve been a pediatrician for over ten years, 13 of you count training, and I’ve been on social media for seven years, the misinformation around sleep and sleep training just does not die.

 

00;00;25;06 – 00;00;55;02

Dr. Mona

Sleep training is a great option option, option option for many families. It can be safe, developmentally appropriate, and incredibly helpful. But choosing not to sleep, train or deciding to approach independent sleep later is also okay. That is exactly why I wanted to re-air this episode. In this final episode of my original sleep series. On the show, I talked with six different mothers, six loving moms who approach sleep differently with their children, different methods, different timelines, same intention raising healthy, secure kids.

 

00;00;55;05 – 00;01;15;07

Dr. Mona

I wanted you to hear their voices, to see the nuance, and to understand that there is not one right way to support sleep. So if this episode resonates, make sure you download the full episode. Link is in the caption. Subscribe so you never miss a follow up or any other episode and share it on social media. Tagging PedsDocTalk and the PedsDocTalkpodcast.

 

00;01;15;07 – 00;01;24;03

Dr. Mona

So I know that you’re listening. Let’s get into today’s follow up.

 

00;01;24;05 – 00;01;35;21

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much. I’m so excited we’re doing this. So first of all, how old and I. You have two sons, right? All right. How old were your sons? I know you said it was, like, different ages, but when you decided to train them, how old were they?

 

00;01;35;23 – 00;01;38;10

Mom

The oldest was six months and the youngest was four months.

 

00;01;38;15 – 00;01;50;00

Dr. Mona

Okay. And what method? You chose? The same method for both of them, right? Correct. So let’s talk about your older son who was trained at six months. Right. So describe how the method went for you.

 

00;01;50;02 – 00;01;59;14

Mom

So it’s basically you start their bedtime routine. Give them a kiss. Tell them good night. Put them in the crib and shut the light out and walk out.

 

00;01;59;15 – 00;02;20;26

Dr. Mona

Oh my gosh, how could you say that? Okay, look, I’m happy you’re on because this is probably of all the sleep training methods, it’s the most controversial one. It is. Okay. And we’ll talk about that. What I want to talk about is how it went, like, meaning obviously, that the people listening who have not had children or who are against crime methods, they must be like, oh my gosh, for these awful mothers.

 

00;02;20;28 – 00;02;31;13

Dr. Mona

I know we’re not okay. So how do they kind of go? Let’s talk about your six month old meaning night by night, if you can remember how many minutes he cried for. Or you know, when night by night, if you can remember. It’s okay if you can’t.

 

00;02;31;16 – 00;02;49;18

Mom

Oh, I absolutely can’t. With our first when we started training him at six months, the first night was 60 minutes of crime, which we expected. We knew it was going to be a while. We were told that it would be cut in half the next night, and it basically went a minute, every day, a minute less of crime.

 

00;02;49;19 – 00;03;02;12

Mom

So went from like an hour to, like, the next night was 59 minutes and the next night was 58. We were seeing progress, but it took a while for him to kind of learn how to self-soothe.

 

00;03;02;19 – 00;03;04;13

Dr. Mona

How many nights do you think it took?

 

00;03;04;15 – 00;03;09;09

Mom

Probably a week before we really saw, you know, it was maybe five minutes and he was out.

 

00;03;09;12 – 00;03;15;16

Dr. Mona

So after that week, did he start? Did you see him sleeping through the night or did you watch it? Yes. Okay.

 

00;03;15;22 – 00;03;22;17

Mom

So he tried the like initially when we laid him down, he would be out for the night, which was about 12 hours.

 

00;03;22;19 – 00;03;31;05

Dr. Mona

I see. So after the initial hour, 59 minutes, the rest of the night was okay. But why did you decide this was the method you guys wanted?

 

00;03;31;11 – 00;03;52;03

Mom

So we had tried. It all started when he was about five months. He was a great sleeper up until that point. And then all of a sudden he was woke and it was no napping. It was nearly impossible to get him down. He was fussy all day long because he was just exhausted. We decided to try the Ferber method just based off of Google searching.

 

00;03;52;05 – 00;04;09;15

Mom

Ferber was definitely not the method for us. It actually seemed to upset him even more whenever we went in there and walked away. So it was almost every time we were kind of traumatizing everybody by walking in there. It was hard on me. He wanted me. You could actually see it. And then it was harder on him when we left.

 

00;04;09;17 – 00;04;25;24

Mom

So we knew that was out. The rocking him all night wasn’t going to work. The sleeping with him in our room was definitely not going to work because he just wanted to play. So it was kind of the last method that we tried.

 

00;04;25;29 – 00;04;29;11

Dr. Mona

And was the method you found. You said you just searched online, right?

 

00;04;29;13 – 00;04;47;14

Mom

No, actually, we I had explained to my sister that he wasn’t napping and he was having issues sleeping, and she knew somebody who had done sleep consulting, which is something we had never heard of. We were first time parents. And she asked if she could connect us, and she kind of walked us through. She no longer did it professionally.

 

00;04;47;16 – 00;05;00;05

Mom

She offered her services for free, but it was more of a via the phone kind of walk through us, the process. And she just explained, listen, you got to give him his bedtime routine, give him a kiss, put him down, walk away and he’ll be fine.

 

00;05;00;08 – 00;05;00;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;05;00;26 – 00;05;02;16

Mom

You know, and it. Go ahead.

 

00;05;02;23 – 00;05;08;25

Dr. Mona

What? When? When he was like at that time, was he feeding during the night when you decided to do this method? Yes.

 

00;05;08;25 – 00;05;26;07

Mom

And he would wake up right around 334. So it was kind of hard for me because it was that hour of, okay, well, now do I just go back to van? Do I start my day? I kind of can’t go back to sleep now. So he was having difficulty falling asleep. He would fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night and feed as well and feed himself to sleep.

 

00;05;26;09 – 00;05;29;04

Dr. Mona

So when you did the method, obviously you’re cut you cut out the feed correctly.

 

00;05;29;04 – 00;05;34;23

Mom

Right. Correct. Right. And he was right at that point. So he was on solids. He was getting food throughout the day.

 

00;05;34;25 – 00;05;53;00

Dr. Mona

And this is a method right. Like I’m happy we’re talking about this because like I said at the beginning, this is a method that when where I used to work as a pediatrician, it was very popular. This give them a kiss goodnight. It is actually, like you said, perfectly. Some babies need this method. So for us, I actually we should train Ryan pretty early.

 

00;05;53;00 – 00;06;10;23

Dr. Mona

I mentioned and I mentioned it later in this episode as well. But we’ve we’ve trained him at two months. Yes. Because he was stretching nine, 8 to 9 hours already, so I would probably have not done it that early had he been feeding four, three, three, four times in the night. But he was already stretching nine hours.

 

00;06;10;23 – 00;06;30;29

Dr. Mona

So I, I talked to my husband like, why don’t we try doing 11, right? Right. Why not? So that’s why we chose the method. And it was something that worked for us. And it worked amazingly. And not every night. It’s not going to work for every baby. At four months, he started to regress because he was flipping himself over onto his belly and freaking out.

 

00;06;31;06 – 00;06;40;14

Dr. Mona

So we actually tried doing Ferber at four months and it didn’t. Like you said, it didn’t work for him. It was like mom. And he actually would just get more crying in the room.

 

00;06;40;15 – 00;06;47;20

Mom

That’s exactly what happened. It would just piss him off even more. It was just, it was upsetting for everybody all over again.

 

00;06;47;22 – 00;07;02;16

Dr. Mona

So I actually left the room because I’m like. Like you. Like I left the room because I’m like. And then he’d stop crying. It’s insane how some kids just don’t can’t do the method that maybe you read online or that some other method that a family chose. So that is why I’m putting this on here. The what? This conversation.

 

00;07;02;20 – 00;07;08;29

Dr. Mona

Because like you said, it’s it may just not be the method that you may think you’re going to do, but it may just work for your baby.

 

00;07;08;29 – 00;07;34;12

Mom

And I also think timing has a lot to do with it. So when we sleep trained, our youngest at four months, it actually went a lot better. I think he cried maybe one night, and I don’t know if it’s just because we were more confident in what we were doing because we had done it before. But at six months I feel like our son was just so much more aware, and he had more of a voice and he could kind of understand the situation more, if that makes any sense.

 

00;07;34;14 – 00;07;34;18

Mom

Of.

 

00;07;34;18 – 00;07;35;06

Dr. Mona

Course it does.

 

00;07;35;06 – 00;07;42;17

Mom

So I think it was actually harder for us. Had I known about sleep training, I would have done it sooner with our first as opposed to six months.

 

00;07;42;19 – 00;08;00;27

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And you’re right, because the some, you know, separation anxiety develops around like maybe nine months, but some babies have it as early as four months. And I completely agree with you that the, that the, the voice is louder and also their awareness of the of the parent in the room. And Ferber works so well for so many families, like you said.

 

00;08;01;03 – 00;08;16;20

Dr. Mona

But the anger that he had with me being there. Yeah, like like almost like me being there, he would calm down. But then the moment I step back, it would be like, mommy, wait. And you actually consulted someone who does sleep consulting for a living, right? I mentioned this method.

 

00;08;16;20 – 00;08;27;07

Mom

Yes, there was what you just suggested and it worked for us. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to work for everybody, but that’s just what worked for our kid.

 

00;08;27;09 – 00;08;37;13

Dr. Mona

And I think and I speak about this with a on the other, another episode with the sleep consultant, we talk about the different methods and how there’s so much, you know, well, to get to this, like judgment or like, oh, how could you?

 

00;08;37;13 – 00;08;38;11

Mom

Oh yeah, I.

 

00;08;38;14 – 00;08;50;26

Dr. Mona

As I think we to it’s exhausting because I’m like I, it’s like I’m not telling you to do anything that’s harmful and I wouldn’t I obviously did this for my child and this child. If you follow me on Instagram is like the most happiest.

 

00;08;51;00 – 00;08;53;29

Mom

Not like it’s very obvious that you.

 

00;08;53;29 – 00;08;56;02

Dr. Mona

Have obviously like and.

 

00;08;56;02 – 00;09;15;23

Mom

I will say to our son before we decided to sleep train he again, like I said, he slept great and then all of a sudden he was not sleeping great and he was miserable and fussy and nothing made him happy. Holding him and walking didn’t make him happy. He didn’t want to be rocked and I think he was just overstimulated and sleep training, out of sleep training, training.

 

00;09;15;23 – 00;09;40;13

Mom

We got the happiest, most well-adjusted, well-rested. He didn’t have tantrums. He was just sleep. I had no idea. But sleep really does wonders for kids and their development. Yeah, and it really changed things for us. So I had the opposite of experience of it didn’t traumatize my kid. It didn’t change things for us. It actually made things better for all of us.

 

00;09;40;15 – 00;10;11;04

Dr. Mona

Especially him as a pediatrician. When I have children, I really recommend sleep training by one by one latest because when you get into those toddler years, sleep and a routine are vital. And if your child’s not sleeping through the night by one and you’re approaching, it’s not terrible twos, by the way, it’s the terrible ones. But you are getting into this age where if you’re don’t have a routine of of sleep at night and then doing naps in the day, feeding in the day, your child is going to have way more breakdowns.

 

00;10;11;05 – 00;10;28;10

Dr. Mona

You’re going to be a mess and you’re not going to enjoy the toddler years. Can I be honest? I have friends who sleep. All my friends who sleep train actually are really. Obviously no one loves toddlers having tantrums, but they’re enjoying the toddler years because their child has a rhythm.

 

00;10;28;13 – 00;10;49;21

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real, relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

 

00;10;49;28 – 00;11;05;12

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.