Ferber vs pick up, put down

You want your baby to learn to fall asleep in the crib, and you have narrowed it down to two methods. One lets you pick your baby up every time they cry. The other asks you to stay hands-off. It is hard to know whether the gentler-sounding one will actually work.

Here is the short answer. With the Ferber method, you check in briefly at set, growing intervals and do not pick your baby up to settle them. With pick up, put down, you pick your baby up whenever they cry, calm them, and put them back down before they fall asleep, over and over. Ferber has a solid research base behind it. Research on pick up, put down is very limited, so nobody can say with confidence how well it works or how it compares.

How pick up, put down works

The Cleveland Clinic describes the method this way: you pick up your baby to soothe them if they fuss or cry, then return them to the crib before they fall asleep. It was popularized by nurse Tracy Hogg in her book Secrets of the Baby Whisperer.

In practice, a night looks like this:

1. Do your usual bedtime routine and put your baby in the crib awake.
2. Leave quietly, or stay nearby.
3. When your baby fusses or cries, pick them up and hold them until they calm.
4. Put them back down before they doze off.
5. Repeat as many times as it takes for them to fall asleep in the crib.

A pediatrician quoted by the Cleveland Clinic notes that it can require multiple episodes of picking your child up and putting them down. On a hard night, that can add up to a lot of repetitions. The same source says not to try sleep training with a baby under 4 months old.

How the Ferber method works

With the Ferber method, you also put your baby down awake after a routine, and you leave. If they cry, you wait a set number of minutes, go in for a short, calm check-in, and leave again. You can speak quietly or rest a hand on them, but you do not pick them up to settle them. The waits grow through the night and across the week.

Night	1st wait	2nd wait	3rd wait, then every wait
Night 1	3 min	5 min	10 min
Night 2	5 min	10 min	12 min
Night 3	10 min	12 min	15 min
Night 4	12 min	15 min	17 min
Night 5	15 min	17 min	20 min
Night 6	17 min	20 min	25 min
Night 7	20 min	25 min	30 min

Waits are in minutes. After the third wait, keep repeating the third value until your baby is asleep. If your baby wakes later in the night, start again from that night's first wait.

Our guide to check-ins explains what to do during each visit, and the method page walks through the full week.

Ferber vs pick up, put down: the key differences

Touch. This is the big one. Pick up, put down comforts your baby in your arms every time. Ferber comforts with your voice and presence, and the baby stays in the crib.

Crying alone. With pick up, put down, your baby may cry less while alone because you respond each time. With Ferber, your baby will cry between check-ins, sometimes for the full interval.

Your stamina. Pick up, put down is physically demanding. You may be lifting a heavy 9-month-old again and again in one evening. Ferber asks you to sit with the sound of crying, which is hard in a different way.

Predictability. Ferber has a chart, so you always know when the next visit is. Pick up, put down has no fixed limit on how many times you repeat it, which some parents find freeing and others find draining.

Stimulation. For some babies, being lifted, calmed and lowered again is soothing. For others, each put-down restarts the protest, and the handling itself keeps them awake. You will usually be able to tell which kind of baby you have within a few nights.

What the research says, and does not say

Behavioral sleep methods as a group are well studied. A 2006 review of 52 studies for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 94% reported behavioral treatments were effective, with over 80% of children showing clinically significant improvement maintained for 3 to 6 months (Mindell et al., 2006). The review’s summary found strong support for unmodified extinction and preventive parent education, and support for graduated extinction, bedtime fading with positive routines, and scheduled awakenings. Pick up, put down is not named.

A later meta-analysis of 16 controlled trials found moderate-level evidence that behavioral interventions help young children fall asleep faster and wake less at night (Meltzer and Mindell, 2014).

Graduated extinction, the family the Ferber method belongs to, has also been tested in randomized trials. In one with 43 babies aged 6 to 16 months, graduated extinction led to large drops in how long babies took to fall asleep and in night wakings, compared with a control group (Gradisar et al., 2016).

For pick up, put down, the picture is thin. A search of PubMed, the main database of medical research, for the phrase “pick up put down” with infant sleep turns up no published trials at the time of writing. The question is simply open: there is no good evidence either way, and anyone who tells you it works as well as, or better than, Ferber is going beyond what has been studied. Our research page summarizes the studies that do exist.

How to decide

Both methods share the same foundation: a calm, predictable routine and a baby who goes into the crib awake. The AAP recommends putting babies 4 months and older to bed drowsy but awake, because babies who are held or rocked to sleep may struggle to go back to sleep when they wake in the night (HealthyChildren.org). Both methods are ways of getting there.

Pick up, put down may suit you if your baby calms quickly in your arms and stays calm when put back down, if you have the stamina for many repetitions, and if you would rather try a hands-on approach first, knowing the evidence is limited.

The Ferber method may suit you if your baby gets more worked up the more they are handled, if you want a clear plan with a fixed shape, or if you have tried pick up, put down for a week or more without much change.

Some families try pick up, put down first and move to Ferber later. That is reasonable. Give one approach a fair week, then switch on purpose, and make sure every adult does the same thing. Our co-parenting guide covers how to agree on a plan. And if you are not sure you want to sleep train at all, that is a valid choice too.

Safety with either method

Pick up, put down involves a lot of holding late in the evening, when you are tired. If you feel yourself drifting off, put your baby back in the crib first. Every sleep, your baby goes down on their back, in their own crib, on a firm, flat surface with nothing soft in it. The AAP guide to safe sleep has the details.

One thing to try tonight

At bedtime, hold your baby until they are calm and drowsy, then lay them in the crib awake and step back. Notice what happens. A baby who settles, or fusses briefly and drifts off, is giving you useful information about which approach might suit them.

If you go with Ferber, the Ferber app runs each wait, alerts you when it is time to check in, and keeps a record of every night so you can see what is changing.

Common questions

What is the difference between Ferber and pick up, put down?

With the Ferber method you do not pick your baby up to settle them. You check in briefly at set, growing intervals and leave. With pick up, put down, you pick your baby up each time they cry, hold them until they calm, and put them back in the crib before they fall asleep, as many times as needed.

Is there research on pick up, put down?

Very little. The method was popularized by Tracy Hogg in Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, but there do not appear to be published trials testing it by that name. Graduated extinction, the approach the Ferber method is based on, has been studied far more.

Is pick up, put down better for young babies?

There is no evidence that it is better at any age. Whatever the method, sleep training is not recommended before about 4 months, 6 months is the common starting point, and parents of babies under 6 months should talk to their pediatrician first.

Can pick up, put down make crying worse?

For some babies, yes. Being picked up and put down again many times can be stimulating, and a baby may protest each time they go back in the crib. Other babies settle well with it. Watch how your own baby responds over a few nights.

Sources

1. Cleveland Clinic: The Pick Up, Put Down Method
2. Mindell JA et al. Behavioral treatment of bedtime problems and night wakings in infants and young children. Sleep, 2006
3. Meltzer LJ, Mindell JA. Systematic review and meta-analysis of behavioral interventions for pediatric insomnia. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 2014
4. Gradisar M et al. Behavioral interventions for infant sleep problems: a randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics, 2016
5. American Academy of Pediatrics (HealthyChildren.org): Getting Your Baby to Sleep
6. American Academy of Pediatrics (HealthyChildren.org): A Parent's Guide to Safe Sleep