Do your LOs use pacifiers still? Or did they never use one? Or have you weaned them already? I'm curious because my son has become pretty attached to his for falling asleep. I used to never give him one as a newborn, but then I would give him one here and there if fussy and unable to soothe him in any other way, but it wasn't for falling asleep. When he started daycare, as a new mom I was worried that he would be crying all day and they wouldn't know what to do with him so I sent him with a pacifier just in case it was needed... but they have taught him to use it and now he has become dependent on it.
My issue is when he wakes up in the night he wants me to get it for him. Overall his sleeping isn't terrible. There are nights where he'll fall asleep with the pacifier and then STTN. There are others where he might wake up once or twice and he'll fall right back to sleep if I pop it back in for him. Then there are others where he'll get really fussy and agitated and he won't fall back to sleep. This morning for example, he woke up at 4:25 (that was his first wake up), I put it back in his mouth and he fell right back to sleep. About 5 min later he woke up again and he was more fussy.. to make a long story short, he didn't fall back to sleep until 6 and I ended up rocking and putting him back in his crib.. not ideal, I know.
Of course now I'm thinking about sleep training and if I should just get rid of the pacifier. I know I don't want to CIO. From what I know about it, the sleep lady's method seems reasonable, but I don't have the book yet and I feel like I don't have the time to read it. If anyone has any suggestions or advice I would greatly appreciate it. Sorry this got a bit lengthy!
Re: pacifiers/sleep training
To answer your question, my LO uses it for naps and sleep and requires it to fall asleep. I usually put it back in once or twice throughout the night but that's nbd to me if it helps her get back to sleep. She's sttn 50% of the time now so I will soon be weaning my two yr old. I plan on letting LO have her pacifier as long as she wants it up until her 2 nd bday.
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I too was rocking LO to sleep for every nap and at bedtime, I would have to put her down so carefully in her crib otherwise she would wake up screaming and I would have to do it all over again.. She was co sleeping with me most nights as well. I used Ferber, not sure if that is something you would be open to doing or not though. But do your research and decide for yourself. I read his book and found a lot of it quite fascinating. She only used her paci for sleeping so the night we started sleep training we just took it away cold turkey. After reading the book it suggests that you do not use a pacifier as then the baby isn't learning to self soothe. It is just another crutch like rocking etc. She responded super well to the method and now sleeps from 7 pm until 5am and then eats and goes back to sleep until 6:30-7, no rocking! After a couple of days it is like the pacifier didn't really exist to begin with.
It seems like when people do it and get through a few days, then you are good to go. I did a half assed attempt last night just to see. I put him down at 7:30 and he started fussing within a couple of minutes, but just continued to pat and shh him. At 7:40-45ish I thought I was golden bc he was starting to look really drowsy, but then he started getting extra fussy again. At 7:55 I caved and gave it to him bc he started crying. My goal was to try for 30 min so I almost made it. I'm going to try it again tonight and see how it goes. I'm planning on having a chat with daycare Mon morning about the rocking issue bc I can't have them doing the opposite of what I am doing. Thanks for your insight!