Excerpt: The Sleep Trainer
How I gradually came around to the cry-it-out method.
by Sam Apple
June 3, 2009
Ferber argues that sleeping alone in cribs teaches children to see themselves as independent individuals, and that even if babies seem happy sleeping in bed with their parents, it's probably not a good idea to allow it to continue.
In drawing this link between sleeping alone and independence, Ferber was perhaps unknowingly regurgitating a uniquely American myth.
In a 1997 attack on Ferber, the science journalist Robert Wright makes a good point that somehow rarely came up in twentieth-century America. "It isn't obvious to me how a baby would develop a robust sense of autonomy while being confined to a small cubicle
with bars on the side and rendered powerless to influence its environment," Wright notes. "I'd be willing to look at the evidence behind this claim, but there isn't any." Nor, for that matter, is there any reason to assume, as Ferber does, that the fear
of sleeping alone indicates an emotional problem. Wright can barely contain his dismay at Ferber's insistence that "there must be a reason" why babies are afraid of sleeping alone.
Yes, there must. Here's one candidate: Maybe your child's brain was designed
by natural selection over millions of years during which mothers slept with their babies.
Maybe back then if babies found themselves completely alone at night it often meant something horrific had happened — the mother had been eaten by a beast, say. Maybe the young brain is designed to respond to this situation by screaming frantically so that
any relatives within earshot will discover the child. Maybe, in short, the reason that kids left alone sound terrified is that kids left alone naturally get terrified. Just a theory. But then Wright, who writes regularly about morality and evolution, would
be the first to say that there is no reason to assume that what's natural is also what's good.
In the end, exhaustion prevailed.And this is where Jennifer and I found ourselves during Isaac's fifth month: on the one hand thinking that sleep training was not only harsh and unnatural but also a product of an outdated individualistic ethic we didn't subscribe to, and on the other
hand desperately needing to sleep.
In the end, exhaustion prevailed. We decided to Ferberize our son. The key to the Ferber method is letting your baby cry for increasingly long intervals and resisting the urge to pick him or her up. On the first night, you can go into the baby's room after
three minutes, but then should not return again for five minutes, and so on. The next night the intervals should be longer.
Jennifer and I decided that we wouldn't ever let Isaac cry for more than fifteen minutes. If he passed the fifteen-minute mark, we would just accept army crawls as part of life.
On the first night of Ferber, we prepared ourselves with a pep talk, like a sports team before a big game.
"We can do this," I said.
"And in the long run, he's going to cry less," Jennifer said.
"Much less," I said. "We just need to take things one day at a time."
Jennifer kissed Isaac good night, and then I carried him into the other room and put him down in his crib, feeling like Abraham putting Isaac's namesake down in the sacrificial pit.
"I love you so much," I said, bringing my hand to Isaac's face so that he might experience one little gesture of warmth before being left to fend for himself in the dark of our kitchen. I meant to just glance his cheek, but before I could pull my hand away
from his soft skin, Isaac reached up and clutched it.
Two minutes later Jennifer walked out of the bedroom and found me hunched over the crib.
"What's going on?" Jennifer whispered, clearly exasperated.
"He caught me."
"He caught you?"
"He's got my hand. I can't get it out." I shrugged with my free arm. "We'll start tomorrow." The next night, knowing that I couldn't let Jennifer down again, I put Isaac in his crib and raced back into the bedroom, as though I were running from enemy fire.
About the Author
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Sam Apple's work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, and Slate.com, among many other publications. His first
book, Schlepping Through the Alps, was named a finalist for the PEN America award for a first work of nonfiction. In 2005 he received the
annual Faux Faulkner award. Apple's new book, American Parent, is on sale now. |
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