The Ferber Method is a technique invented by Dr. Richard Ferber

Richard Ferber

Dr. Richard Ferber is the director of The Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders, at Children's Hospital Boston. He has been researching sleep and sleep disorders in children for over 20 years...

 to solve infant

Infant

A newborn or baby is the very young offspring of a human or other mammal. A newborn is an infant who is within hours, days, or up to a few weeks from birth. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth...

 sleep problems

Insomnia

Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...

. It involves "baby-training" children to self-soothe by allowing the child to cry for a predetermined amount of time before receiving external comfort.

"Cry it out"

The "Cry It Out" (CIO) approach can be traced back to the book "The Care and Feeding of Children" written by Dr. Emmett Holt in 1895. CIO is any sleep-training method which allows a baby to cry for a specified period of time before the parent will offer comfort. "Ferberization" is one such approach. Ferber does not advocate simply leaving a baby to cry. Some pediatricians , however, feel that any form of CIO is unnecessary and potentially damaging to a baby.

Ferberization summarized

Dr. Richard Ferber discusses and outlines a wide range of practices to teach an infant to sleep. The term ferberization is now popularly used to refer to the following techniques:

• Take steps to prepare the baby to sleep. This includes night-time rituals and day-time activities.
• At bedtime, leave the child in bed and leave the room.
• Return at progressively increasing intervals to comfort the baby (without picking him or her up). For example, on the first night, some scenarios call for returning first after three minutes, then after five minutes, and thereafter each ten minutes, until the baby is asleep.
• Each subsequent night, return at intervals longer than the night before. For example, the second night may call for returning first after five minutes, then after ten minutes, and thereafter each twelve minutes, until the baby is asleep.

The technique is targeted at infants as young as 4 months of age. A few babies are capable of sleeping through the night at 3 months, with training, and most are capable of sleeping through the night at 6 months. Before 6 months of age, the baby may still need to feed during the night and it is probable that the baby will require a night feeding before three months.

Ferber made some modifications in the 2006 edition of his book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. He is now more open to co-sleeping

Co-sleeping

Co-sleeping is a practice in which babies and young children sleep close to one or both parents, as opposed to in a separate room. It is standard practice in many parts of the world, and is practiced by a significant minority in countries where cribs are also used...

 and feels different approaches work for different families/children.

External links

• The Ferber Method Helps Some Children Sleep Longer clinical bottom lines and summary of key evidence, 1999. University of Michigan Health System
  University of Michigan Health System
  The University of Michigan Health System is the wholly owned academic medical center of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. UMHS includes the U-M Medical School, with its Faculty Group Practice and many research laboratories; the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers, which includes University...
  
  , Department of Pediatrics.
• Q & A: The sleepless child, by Dr. Ferber, Pediatric News, June 2004, p. 2-3. Children's Hospital Boston
  Children's Hospital Boston
  Children's Hospital Boston is a 396-licensed bed children's hospital in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area of Boston, Massachusetts.At 300 Longwood Avenue, Children's is adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical School, and to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute...