Pacifier woes

[slworld]

DS is 7months old and has been taking the pacifier on & off during naps/sleep. He was almost off it for maybe a month when he started rolling over in his sleep & has not been sleeping well since then. So we are having to give him the pacifier pretty frequently during sleep. The thing is every time he wakes up he needs the pacifier since he loses it in his sleep. He has been waking up almost every hour at night for the pacifier. Is this how it works or is he supposed to use it only to fall asleep initially & then be able to go back to sleep on his own for the rest of the night? Do they learn to not spit it out in sleep? Do kids using the pacifier ever sleep through the night? Also we are trying to get him out of the swaddle (not going very well) and if his hands are free he keeps taking the pacifier out of his mouth & crying for it again. I was hoping to hear some BTDT advice from moms about how it worked for their kids.

Also he is still using his old pacifier which is for 0-6months. We got him a new one for 6+ months but he doesn’t take that. Is it ok to use the older one? Is there a danger of him swallowing it or something?

Thanks much

[niccig]

We put several pacifiers in the crib so he could always find one, but for a while I had to help him find it. It takes a little while for them to do it, and your DC might still not be able to do so.

Or, your other option is to take this opportunity to ditch the pacifier. I like my sleep too much, so we kept the pacifier until closer to 2yo. Weaning wasn't too bad for us, we got lucky, but it can be difficult for some kids to wean when they are older.

[amandabea]

We put several pacifiers in the crib so he could always find one, but for a while I had to help him find it. It takes a little while for them to do it, and your DC might still not be able to do so.

Or, your other option is to take this opportunity to ditch the pacifier. I like my sleep too much, so we kept the pacifier until closer to 2yo. Weaning wasn't too bad for us, we got lucky, but it can be difficult for some kids to wean when they are older.

Yeah that word for word! Also we had both the 0-6 and 6+ month pacifiers in use until our DD was nearly 2. Then we told her pacis were only for babies and she was almost a big girl and that was it, no more pacis.

[KrisM]

We put several pacifiers in the crib so he could always find one, but for a while I had to help him find it. It takes a little while for them to do it, and your DC might still not be able to do so.

We did this with DD. We actually would put one in her mouth and one in each hand. It took some doing, but she figured it out. She's easily my best sleeper of the three. She slept through at about 9 months very consistently (13 hours).


Or, your other option is to take this opportunity to ditch the pacifier. I like my sleep too much, so we kept the pacifier until closer to 2yo. Weaning wasn't too bad for us, we got lucky, but it can be difficult for some kids to wean when they are older.

We did this at 4 months with DS1 and I regret it. I wish we had pushed through to the point where he could do the pacifier himself. He started sucking his fingers instead and we're still working on getting rid of that at age 4.5. DD, with the pacifier, put it down at 2 and never looked back. DS2 will keep the pacifier for a while. It might be difficult to wean from a pacifier, but fingers are awful