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We Ferberized, but I will be honest, I had to sit outside on the balcony with the door closed while my husband did the intervals. It was too much for me, even though we were literally out of options.

As you know, we used the extinction method when E was 5.5 months old. He'd been waking up 5 times per night and needing to be fed back to sleep (even though he had eaten plenty throughout the day).

We did his normal bedtime routine- bath, PJs, prayers, bottle in the rocking chair from dad- and gave him a kiss before we laid him down. He started whining right away. At first we were planning on me going in every 10 minutes. He got worked up pretty fast. When I went in at the 10 minute mark he settled down briefly but freaked out even more as soon as I started to leave. So we decided to let him go half an hour. He cried the whole time. At the half hour mark he seemed like he was starting to calm down so I didn't go in. He finally fell asleep after an hour and 3 minutes.

On night 2 he cried 18 minutes before falling asleep and on day 3 he only cried 3 minutes. Ever since he has gone right to sleep with no problem.

We just started nap training today so I've actually reassured myself thinking back on our sleep training experience! It's not fun but it seriously changed my life once his nighttime sleep was better.

@hilsy85: we tried CIO at first and she would cry for hours....it was heartbreaking. She really needed the checks for reassurance and after a week, she was doing soooooo much better at night. Good luck and I'm always here if you have questions!

@hilsy85: I think you'll be able to tell. When I went in you could tell E wasn't calming down. He'd get angry that I was there and it would make him rally with his screaming. Yepp, we're doing extinction for naps now too. Before today he'd wake up at 30 minutes on the nose whenever he was sleeping in his crib. Today he whined for 30 minutes and then slept for an hour. We'll see how the next one goes!

@hilsy85: Good luck!!! You can do it and once he's sleeping better and more well rested during the day (and you too!!) it'll feel so worth it Feel free to post to my wall if you want to commiserate during the process!

@hilsy85: oh...and you might have to turn the baby monitor off for those 10mins, or put headphones on, or shower? Because its hard to sit through but remember that it will only be a few mins and a few days until you see the light!!

@hilsy85: This is where DH and i differed. I wanted to start the 5 minutes from when she started to fuss/cry, whereas he wanted to start the timer from when she REALLY started to cry. I think at one point i yelled, "we don't have to go EXACTLY by the book!" When i went into the room, i stayed until she calmed down, which sometimes would be 5 minutes instead of the recommended 2-3 minutes. She normally started crying like crazy after i left, but it subsided soon after.

Really, it's whatever you are most comfortable with!

Just wanted to say good luck, I hope it goes well!

My feeling is that intervals are essentially setting up an intermittant reward system and seems to undermine the purpose of sleep training by going in there. I've discussed this with a developmental psychologist and he was onboard with my thought process... but hey, people say it works.

@hilsy85: No advice, but just wanted to say good luck! He'll do great. When you're about to break, just think of how wonderful it will be to sleep ALL NIGHT LONG!

We did a modified Ferber, sort of. Like some pps, DS would get more pissed off when we'd check on him at 5, 10, 15, etc, so we ended jumping right into 15. I'll let him cry for up to 15 minutes then go in and rock him until he's calm, then put him back down. If he starts crying again I'll let it go for another 15 minutes. And so on.

I also paid close attention to the type of cry. If it was 10 minutes and he was hysterical I'd go in sooner because usually that means something else is wrong--a wet diaper, for instance. If he was just sort of fussy-crying, like he was really tired and just fighting it, I'd let it go until he fell asleep.

We started this in mid-Jan, and I think that maybe 2-3 times I went in early, and probably a dozen times I let it go longer, but the bulk of the time he was either asleep within 10 minutes with little to no fuss, or he would lay quietly in his crib and play with his giraffe until he fell asleep.

It was awful to listen to him cry, especially the first night. I sat on the floor outside of his room and cried. The second night I taped a piece of paper to his door that said: "This is for him."

Good luck!

ETA: I didn't sleep train to STTN. Until we did this he refused to sleep anywhere but in my arms, so the purpose of sleep training for us was primarily so he would sleep in his crib. We don't CIO through night-wakings (partly because we live in an apartment complex at the moment and he shares a wall with a neighbor. No complaints, but I feel really guilty about it anyway). His bedtime is at 9, he usually wakes up around 4 or 5, I nurse him, he sleeps until 9. Some nights it's only one wake-up, some nights (when he's been teething or hitting a growth spurt) he can be up every hour, but for the most part it's 1-2 and I'm okay with that.

@hilsy85: Our method is pretty much what Turtledoves did. We did the extinction method too with mostly no checks (we check at least once) because if we checked, she would escalate. Since all babies are so different, I do think some babies work better with some checks though... just not our.

What we did was do our sleep routine, put her down... and leave the room. If she started escalating, we'll go in once just to make sure she didn't poop or spit up or need to burp. More often than not, we'd pick her up and she'd immediately stop crying, so that reassured us that she was fine. So we'd put her right back down again without anymore checks. After a couple days she slept like a dream, and we never looked back.

@hilsy85: we are by no means an exemplary story of sleep training, but as to your question about how you will know whether the checks are good or bad for him--i agree with runningelley that you'll be able to tell pretty quickly. during extinction CIO, i went in once to pick LO up. after i put him down, he freaked out. i'd never heard him cry like that and it was good motivation not to go check on him again.

of course, about a month later, i lost resolve and went in once, and while he didn't freak out this time, it didn't help him at all (i.e. he wasn't soothed or "reset"--he was still pretty pissed that he wasn't sleeping).