Chair Method/Sleep Lady Shuffle - Success for my God Awful Sleeper

@snapdragons_ Makes sense!! One more question! When he would wake in the middle of the night, did you wait a certain amount of time before resuming your position in his room or would you go in immediately?

Thank you for answering my questions! This is very helpful
 
@snapdragons_ Oh my god, this couldn't be farther from a boring over share! Thank you so much for this! Hearing gentle method success stories is exactly what I need to finally find the courage to do it 🙈 and knowing you have a LO that seems to match the temperament of mine (escalates to crying so hard she'll puke when I leave) is even more encouraging! Would you mind just very briefly summarizing how exactly you implemented the chair method? I know the basics of this method but would love some more "real life experience" details from someone who successfully pulled it off 🤓
 
@brhal Yeah of course! So first three nights I was right next to the bed soothing with rubbing back, patting bum, etc

Night 4-6 my chair was in the middle of the room trying to use only my voice

Night 7-9 my chair was by the door again using only shushing and my voice

10-12 my chair was in the hall but door open so he could see me

Then nights 13 and on I just put him down and left (and then obsessively watched the monitor until he fell asleep)
 
@snapdragons_ Thank you! Does the approach say anything concerning "if LO cries for x amount of time / crying escalates to x out of 10" - call it / intervene? I'm curious because I could easily see my LO cry for hours or scream bloody murder when I'm sitting right next to her but not pick her up 🙈 how bad did the crying get for your LO and did it ever escalate to a point where you "broke the rules" or did you stoically sit through 10/10 screaming at any point? 😅
 
@brhal No I am the furthest thing from stoic!!

So I my (4 minute long) experience with Ferber showed me what a true 10 looked like. He was crying so hard he could barely breathe and I could not handle it at all.

Never in any night of SLS did he reach that level. He yelled at me. And sad cried a lot. Especially the first two nights. Or when the position changed. But it was never as bad as it was when I left the room during Ferber. And that’s kind of what told me this was the right approach for us. I know some babies are the opposite where the crying stops sooner if parent is not there and a parent presence is escalating. So this is just what worked for us.

I definitely patted bum and rubbed back a lot during first few nights and even when my chair was across the room there were still times I went to the crib for a quick bum pat if he was really upset.

I picked him up once on night two when he kind of “fell” from sitting to laying and sacred himself.

But I will say the book was really forgiving about being flexible with that kind of stuff which I liked so I never felt like “oh I ruined it”
 
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