My second child, who is now seven and sleeps like a stone, did not go down on his own from the age of fourteen months until the age of two years and four months. I kept a list, in a small notebook on the kitchen counter, of the strategies we tried.
Here are ten of them, in roughly the order we tried them, with brief notes on why each one failed in our particular kitchen with our particular child. I offer no recommendation, only a record.
One. The Ferber method, exactly as written. We did the timed check-ins for four nights. He cried, on the fourth night, for two hours and forty-eight minutes without de-escalating. We stopped. I do not know whether we should have continued. I know that I could not.
Two. The Ferber method, slower. A pediatric sleep consultant in Portland recommended a gentler version: longer intervals between check-ins, more reassurance at each one. We did this for nine nights. He cried for about the same length of time each night. The consultant told us this was within the normal range. We stopped anyway.
Three. The chair method. I sat in a small wooden chair next to his crib for forty-five minutes a night, moving the chair six inches closer to the door each night. On night six, when the chair reached the hallway, he stood in his crib and pointed at the chair and cried until I brought it back. We had created, my husband observed, a new attachment object that was a piece of furniture.
Four. The chair method, with no chair. I sat on the floor instead. This worked slightly better, in that he did not appear to require my exact location, but he did appear to require my exact body. He could tell, somehow, when I had moved into the hall, and he would call for me with what sounded like genuine grief.
Five. A weighted sleep sack. Approved by the pediatrician at two pounds, recommended by a friend whose daughter had loved hers. He did not appear to notice it. He also did not sleep.
Six. White noise. A small fan. Then a sound machine. Then a sound machine and a fan together, which produced a noise my husband compared to a parking garage. The child slept exactly as he had been sleeping, which is to say not at all.
Seven. Earlier bedtime. The conventional wisdom is that an overtired toddler sleeps worse. We moved bedtime from 7:30 to 7:00 to 6:45, at which point he began waking up at 4:30 a.m. ready to begin his day. We moved it back.
Eight. Later bedtime. The unconventional wisdom is that a tired-enough toddler will go down easier. We moved bedtime to 8:30. He went down faster but woke up just as many times. We moved it back.
Nine. The bedtime routine, extended. Bath, then books, then song, then a small specific cup of water, then the lullaby, then the closing of the door in a particular way. This routine, which took fifty-five minutes from start to finish, became its own form of insomnia. He needed the whole routine, every night, in the exact order, or he could not go down at all. We had created a liturgy.
Ten. The bedtime routine, abbreviated. Two books. One song. Door closed. He took this development as a personal injury and cried for an hour. We restored the liturgy.
What worked, in the end, was not on the list. What worked was that he turned two years and four months old.
Some morning in late October, I cannot tell you the date, he stopped fighting bedtime. He climbed into his crib. He let me sing him the song. He let me close the door. He went to sleep.
He had been, perhaps, developmentally ready. He had been, perhaps, the same child he had always been, who was going to start sleeping when he was going to start sleeping. He had been, perhaps, simply tired enough of the routine to let it go.
I do not believe, in retrospect, that any of the ten strategies on my list made any measurable difference to when he started sleeping. I believe that he started sleeping when he was ready.
I also believe that the strategies were not entirely a waste, because they gave us something to do during the months we could not do anything. They gave us the feeling of agency in a situation where, mostly, we did not have any.
There is a particular kind of grief in being a parent who cannot make a child sleep. It is the first time, for many of us, that we encounter our own helplessness with a person we love. It is not a small thing.
What I would tell another parent, in the same kitchen, with the same notebook, is this: try a few of the strategies. Stop the ones that distress you or your child. Hold the long view. The child will sleep eventually. It will not be because of anything you did.
And in the meantime, keep the list. Not as a record of failure, but as a record of the kind of attention you brought to a person you could not yet reach.
