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Comment by atestu | Hacker News Reader

No one’s mentioned the Ferber method yet, it’s what got my daughter to start falling asleep on her own and do full nights at 5 months old. Took about 4 nights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferber_method

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This was called "controlled crying" when we did it, and it worked a treat on our first and, as far as I can recall, wasn't necessary for our second (yes, lucky!). It was surprisingly quickly effective, maybe a week. Recommended.

I do remember that quite sharp 'parental pain' (it's hard to describe, it's like an intrinsic 'hunger to help') of knowing that we have to get through the next X minutes of baby crying without going in there. It's good to have a supportive partner so you can both keep each other in check (or to put it how I'd prefer: "well, we're both bad parents if this doesn't work, it's not just me").

I personally disagree with this. I think that instinct is very meaningful and valid, and most people would be better off co-sleeping with their children rather than teaching them how to be alone more effectively when they’re too young to have done so in the wild.

i don't know if we were just lucky, but co-sleeping worked very well for us.

This is an excellent method. Our first kid was very difficult, but that changed after learning the Ferber technique. We've used it with subsequent children with great success.

We’re 3 kids into a “softer” version of the Ferber method and also report that it works well.

Same here we transitioned at 8 months old from sleeping in our room in a side sleeper to sleeping in his own room on his own bed by using the Ferber method, it worked great.

We did soften it somewhat by setting the maximum interval at 7 minutes (we couldn't stand longer than that). It might have slightly reduced how quickly the method works (although we started to really see great progress 4 days in which is in line with the book).v

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