Richard Ferber

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Richard Alan Ferber (* 1944 ) is an American neurologist and pediatrician. He teaches as an Associate Professor at Harvard University and directs the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children's Hospital in Boston . His research areas include the behavioral and chronobiological aspects of childhood sleep disorders , sleep apnea and parasomnias . His book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems , published in 1985, became a bestseller and made Ferber internationally known.

Live and act

Ferber studied at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and initially worked at the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke in the early 1970s . In 1974 he returned to Harvard Medical School as a researcher and dealt with the sleep of infants for the first time in the context of psychosomatic medicine and psychiatry. In 1978/1979 he founded the country's first center for sleep disorders in children at Children's Hospital in Boston - the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders - which he has also directed ever since.

Ferber is a member of the American Board of Sleep Medicine and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). He has received numerous awards and honors, including the AASM's Nathaniel Kleitman Distinguished Service Award in 1994 and the AASM's Excellence in Education Award in 2002 .

Ferber method

Ferber became known beyond medical circles after the publication of his book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems (1985). Ferber recommends that parents gradually accustom children who cannot fall asleep without extensive parental support to falling asleep on their own ( sleep training ).

The Ferber method is based on putting the baby in bed when tired but still awake and leaving the room after a short sleep ritual. If necessary, one of the parents returns to the room, and the screaming child is inspected at a fixed minute cycle. When the infant cries, they are encouraged to calm down and their back may be rubbed, but the infant is not taken out of bed or pacified. In the best case, after two to three days, at the latest after two weeks, the infant should have learned to fall asleep by itself and to find sleep by itself. The basis of the Ferber method is the assumption that behavior is learned and can be trained and trained.

Night no. 1. Control 2. Control 3. and every
further check
1 after 3 min. after 5 min. after 10 min.
2 5 10 12
3 10 12 15th
4th 12 15th 17th
5 15th 17th 20th
6th 17th 20th 25th
7th 20th 25th 30th

Representatives of attachment parenting , which the co-sleeping advocate who accused him then that he was teaching and I support it, children cry out to be. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which recommends the “Cry It Out” method (according to Marc Weissbluth ) as the standard procedure for the treatment of behavior-related sleep disorders in children, takes a completely different point of view .

Publications (selection)

  • Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems , 1985 (German: Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf. Schlafprobleme bei Kindern , Trobisch 1996, ISBN 978-3878270744 )
  • Editor, with Meir Kryger: Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine in the Child , 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Editorial Staff. In: Anthony L. Komaroff (Ed.): Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. Free Press, New York 2005, p. 11 ff. Here p. 12 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  2. ↑ Ferber technique / effect. In: Jon E. Roeckelein (Ed.): Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories. Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006, p. 214 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  3. ↑ a b c Richard Ferber. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 10, 2015 ; accessed on January 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.apbspeakers.com
  4. ↑ David Blum, When Lullabies Aren't Enough: Richard Ferber , The New York Times, October 9, 1994; Barbara Meltz: The Crying Game , The Boston Globe, May 23, 2006; Karen Weintraub: Getting your kids to sleep , The Boston Globe, July 11, 2011
  5. ↑ Sleep Strategies: A Cry in the Dark: The Best Therapy for Childhood Insomnia? Retrieved February 6, 2015 .
  6. ↑ limited online version in the Google book search
personal data
SURNAME Ferber, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ferber, Richard Alan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American neurologist and pediatrician
DATE OF BIRTH 1944