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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
Pacifier rehab
Sorry if this topic has been brought up recently - I didn't see it, so here goes: My 5-month old just recently started taking the pacifier (at around 3 months, when I went back to work). Since then, she has become increasingly dependent on it. It's now to the point where she doesn't even sleep through a solid hour the whole night. She is constantly waking up for it, once or even twice an hour. This is really wearing us down, so I want to just take it away cold turkey. But I've been having people tell me that she is too young and that she still needs something to comfort her, and that we won't be able to use it at all in any situations (like going out to dinner, grocery store, etc.). Thoughts on her being too young? Has anyone had success weaning their child off of the "dependency" and then being able to use it again during the day? Thanks!
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Re: Pacifier rehab
We ditched the pacifier cold turkey right at 4 months. They associated sleep with only the pacifier and their swaddle blanket and when it would fall out no big deal, but at the end of their sleep cycle (which is about 45 minutes) they would wake for it.. so I was getting up about 10-12 times a night just to insert a dang pacifier.
You basically have 3 options:
1. Get rid of the pacifier (taking it away cold turkey is easiest IMO)
2. Teach her to find her own pacifier in the middle of the night, and put it back in herself.
3. Keep doing what you are doing, getting up out of bed every hour to stick the pacifier in her mouth.
We decided to get rid of it- we knew it would be at least a month or two before they would be able to learn to find it and put it back in themselves, and by the time they were 6 months old we wanted to start weaning off the paci anyways.
We also wanted to get rid of the swaddle too- this way if they wanted something to suck on to soothe themselves, they had their hands.
Since we got rid of the swaddle & paci (both sleep associations) we replaced them with a knitted blanket (has holes in it) and their seahorse. They only get their blanket and their seahorse at night & we keep them in their crib.
Their pedi said the best time to get rid of the paci is before 6 months, usually between 4-5 months cause they have the ability to learn to self settle. After 6 months there really is no need for a paci- babies just want it cause of the security and habit of having it.
The first 2 or 3 days were honestly the hardest, but they learned to self settle on their own within a week. We can lay them down fully awake for naps and bedtime and they no longer cry. We let them CIO but we would go in every so often to calm them down without picking them up. At like 3 minutes, then another 5 minutes, then 7 minutes.. Once it started like they were starting to calm down (fussing, rather than crying) we stopped going in there because this meant to us they were self settling- going back in there would just piiss them off even more. Every night the crying got less & less.
They forgot about the paci after a couple days & their sleep changed dramatically! If you are going to do it, just do it.. I wouldn't take it away and then the next day give it back cause that will just confuse her.
I know this is long! I hope it helps!! Good Luck!