Michelle Obama and her husband, Barack Obama, hugely disagreed on using a controversial sleep training technique when Sasha and Malia were babies.
The former first lady reflected on their use of the Ferber Method in a conversation with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt on Wednesday’s episode of her “IMO” podcast.
The practice, invented by physician Richard Ferber, involves allowing a child to cry for pre-determined intervals of time before receiving external comfort.
Haidt was discussing how he “ferberized” his son when Michelle admitted that she and Barack “did the same thing” despite initially not seeing eye-to-eye on the approach.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Michelle said. “Barack did it and I don’t know that I could have done it because I wasn’t sure about it — the notion that you just let the little person that you love cry and cry.”
Michelle, 61, said that she “couldn’t even” deal with the thought of letting her kids cry — theorizing that it may have had something to do with her estrogen levels postpartum.
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“We set it up where Barack took the night shift. I went to bed, which was helpful because it got me some sleep,” she said.
Michelle said she would “literally” cover her ears so she wouldn’t hear her daughters crying at night.
“It took no longer than a week [for the method to work] and it was really after the first two nights, because we started early,” Michelle admitted.
They had turned to Ferberization after weaning one of her daughters off of breastfeeding at about four or five months old, she explained.
“It was very early so she learned quickly,” Michelle said. “The sooner that you start, sort of, removing the symptom, the quicker you start to implement the action, the more responsive the child is sooner.”
Michelle and the 63-year-old politician, who tied the knot in 1992, welcomed Malia, 26, and Sasha, 24, in 1998 and 2001, respectively.