Around 7pm we put Nathan to bed. He's usually really good and after about 10 minutes fussing, he sleeps. And on daycare nights he is so tired he usually falls asleep even quicker. However, now that he's got a double ear infection, he's been fussier than normal. Previously he would sleep from 7pm until around 3am. He'd get a bottle, a diaper change and back to bed until around 6am. That's been our routine and now its been shot to hell. This is how it goes.
7pm - Nathan in bed all cozy in his baby in a bag and a pacifier in his mouth.
8:3pm - pacifier falls out of mouth
8:45pm - Nathan wakes up and screams his little head off - he went to SLEEP with his pacifier and now it's gone. Disaster has struck. WHERE is his pacifier?
Screaming continues until we run upstairs and return the pacifier to his mouth. Exhausted, Nathan falls asleep again until about an hour goes by. The whole scenario repeats over and over and over again until morning. Or until around 4am where we give up, admit defeat and bring him into bed with us because a. we can reach out and return his pacifier to him without giving up, and b. we're exhausted and no longer care about all the bad habits that come from letting your baby sleep next to you.
We're back to being as tired as we were when Nathan was a newborn and we have no idea how to stop the pacifier game. Now at 7 months old, I am pretty sure that he's too young to "cry it out" and I don't even know if I can do that. Hearing Nathan cry is like having my heart ripped out of my chest. Now Nathan can pick UP the pacifier, he just has difficulty getting it back into his mouth. So leaving him with pacifiers scattered all over the crib won't work. I'm thinking we need to break the pacifier habit completely, but HOW???
Gentle readers I need your advice!! Leave a comment and let me know what you think we should do!
2 comments:
Hmmm...no suggestions. We should definitely export your Blog updates to your Facebook account.
So, this exact scenario happened with me with my third child. I couldn't deal with the sleepless nights again so I decided to take the pacifier away. It took three to four nights of crying, but then he found his thumb and he was able to sooth himself and get himself to sleep. I have found that the longer you let habits go, the harder they are to break. I know that it is hard to let them cry, but sometimes you have to a little. I went with the rule of letting them cry for 1 minute for every month. This only started after four months old. Then I would go in reassure them and then leave again for another 8 minutes or so. All parents will give you different advice. You know what is best for your baby. I know you'll figure this one out. Good luck.
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