Sleeping with a pacifier....help!

KTdidit

DS2 has been super extremely cranky at bedtime this week. He has never STTN, the best I got was a few days of waking up once a night when he was about 3mo. Well all this week he has been waking up at least 3x per night. Once we figured out that he wasn't truly hungry, he just wanted his binky, it doesn't take as long to get him back to sleep. But he still wakes up squealing, it almost sounds  like he is in pain or scared himself awake, but he's not. It's because his binky fell out of his mouth and he can't get it back in.

I don't know how much more I can take waking up every 2 hours every night, I'm exhausted. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? DS1 was such an easy baby, STTN by 2mo, never took a pacifier. I feel like I've never done this before!

flcl

Ugh, that's rough and I'm sorry to say that I don't have very good advice for you (my LO stopped taking his pacifier at 1 month).  Is LO able to fall asleep without his pacifier or are you able to take the pacifier out of his mouth right after he falls asleep without waking him?  If not, your 2 choices are to either teach him to do so or you will be going in every time the pacifier falls out until he's able to reach out and get it for himself.  A friend's baby uses a wubbanub, which is a stuffed animal attached to a soother pacifier.  The weight of the animal helps her keep the pacifier from falling out.  GL.

KTdidit

We had the wubbanub but the Soothie says it's not supposed to be used after 3 months I believe. He doesn't always need the pacifier, he can fall asleep without it. It's just the last week that he has seemed to really want it more. I wonder if I can sew the wubbanub onto the pacifier that he likes?

Sscarolynedvx

Is your LO teething? My daughter usually sleeps with a paci and when it falls out she continues to sleep without a problem but the last couple of days shes been cranky and waking up looking for her paci too, I know shes teething and that the pacifier helps ease the discomfort so I just stick the paci back into her mouth , is that the issue perhaps?

Stace0616

I know a few people who have sewn the pacifier onto an old Beanie baby to make their own Wubanub. I mean, if you're like me, there are a ton of those just laying around my parents house, so even if my sewing skills are subpar, no money wasted lol!

lovemygirls07

5 months is when dd started picking them up on her own. We put a whole bunch in the crib for easy access:) If she couldn't get it on her own, I wouldn't replace it for her, otherwise I know she would continue waking just so that I could come in and put it in. I never minded my kids having a binky for sleep, but I drew the line at replacing it all night:)

KingsGirl4

My little guy was doing a similar thing a week or so ago. He is 3 months old. I just kept putting it back in. For the most part he has quit crying when it falls out now. It must have just been a phase for us. Hope you are able to get some sleep soon!

amt0312

I put up with this for 2 months with DD before we weaned off the binky completely. I would be in her room upwards 20x a night to replace the dropped binky. I was sleep deprived and going insane. We are now binky free and loving it. 

KTdidit

Thanks for everyone's replies! We got DS two more pacifiers like the one he likes, so no more searching in the middle of the night for it. He can get it back in his mouth but not when he's sleeping. So for the last couple nights sleep has gone better. Last night he had a bottle at 730, went right to sleep with no binky. Woke up at 1230, gave him the binky, still not happy, made him a small bottle, went straight back to sleep. Woke up at 3, was happy with binky. Woke up at 5, came and snuggled with me in bed for 15 minutes til my alarm went off.

He's got to be teething. I see no signs of a tooth but all the warning signs are there. I'm really hoping that he will get over this hump soon. In the meantime, we seem to be getting a good system down.

Thanks again everyone!

Sscarolynedvx

amt0312 said:

we weaned off the binky completely.. We are now binky free and loving it. 

How did you do it and how old is your LO?

res932

We are going through the exact same thing and it is so frustrating. I am really, REALLY hoping that this is a phase and he is out of it soon!

BlueEyedDreamer

Sscarolynedvx said:

we weaned off the binky completely.. We are now binky free and loving it. 

How did you do it and how old is your LO?

Not sure how amt did it, but we went through this recently, too. We took the paci away because he seemed to be chasing it around the crib and playing with it more than it was actually helping him soothe himself to sleep. Teething has definitely been part of the issue, too.

We went cold turkey. It was hard for the first week, but I'm so glad we did it. We had to go back to rocking him to sleep and other comforts for the first couple of days, but now we lay him down completely awake without the paci and he rolls around for a few minutes before passing out for the night. He slept for 11 hours straight last night!