Ferber
Also called Ferber method, Ferberize, Ferberizing, Ferberized, Ferberization, re-Ferber
Ferber is the surname of pediatrician Richard Ferber, and parents use it as shorthand for his sleep training method of checking on a crying baby at set, growing intervals. It also turns into a verb, as in Ferberize, Ferberizing and Ferberized.
How it's said
Ferberizing a baby feels wrong for a good reason.
Does this sound familiar to when you've had to re-Ferber with illness?
I followed the Ferber method when DD was 8.5 months old, had always been fed to sleep and was waking every 90 mins.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- Ferber's method has a parent go back in at set, growing intervals to comfort the baby. Cry it out methods with no check-ins at all often get called Ferber by mistake.
Where it came from
Richard Ferber is a pediatrician who directs the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children's Hospital Boston. His book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems came out in 1985, and the check-in approach in it became known as the Ferber method, or Ferberization.
His name also became a verb: Wiktionary records Ferberize as using the Ferber method on a baby. When Ferber revised the book in 2006, NPR reported that many parents swore by so-called Ferberizing, and Ferber said he'd just as soon the verb went to sleep.