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Pacifier and sleep at 5.5 months

7 replies

starst · 14/06/2021 07:07

I need some advice on whether to wean my 5.5 month old baby girl from pacifier. She only uses it for falling asleep, but during 4 months sleep regression, she has developed the habit of needing it in her mouth during the full sleep time. She woke up almost hourly during the night, so I had to wean her from using the pacifier for the night since last week. It has been generally fine so far. She had two hard nights, but generally going down after the bed routine without crying at all.

The problems are 1) She wakes up for a feed around 3am and cannot fall back to sleep without pacifier. I tried not to give it to her, and she would turn a lot and make all kinds of sound but still awake until her get up time at 6am. With pacifier, it still takes her quite a while to fall back to sleep, but she can usually sleep one more hour before 6am. I don't know if this will confuse her or even give her an extra incentive not to sleep after the 3am feed until she gets the pacifier. 2) It's about her nap. She is napping well during the day with 3 naps of 2h, 1.5h and 30m. The last nap finishes around 3pm. I'm trying to stretch it to later or add a 4th nap at 5pm without any success. Her night time starts around 6 to 6:30pm, with her overtired sometimes. I have to sit by her during all her naps to put her pacifier back, otherwise she would wake up and crying. I tried once not using pacifier for her nap, and she couldn't sleep after 30m struggling, so I gave up.

What do you suggest? Should I just wait until she can put the pacifier back herself? The age for achieving that seems vary a lot depending on the baby. Or should I try again with pacifier weaning for the whole day after the 6 month growth spurt? I'm a bit concerned that it will break all the schedule we have so far, but it's really not sustainable for me to sit with her for all her naps everyday. I need time to do the chores and make her solids. Thank you for your advice, and any experience of pacifier weaning at similar age? 😊

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Bitofachinwag · 14/06/2021 07:14

Stop worrying so much about routine, "sleep regressions " and go with what seems to suit your baby. Try a couple of days without the dummy and see how it goes. Have a rest when she sleeps.

Making solids doesn't have to take a long time. There's often something in an adult meal that a baby her age can have a taste of. What do you normally eat? Mashed banana, other cooked mashed veg doesn't take long to cook while your own meal is cooking.

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starst · 14/06/2021 07:24

I have to admit that I eat lots of half prepared package meals from the supermarket to save time, so I need to change that a bit to align what we eat. She seems sleeps better now with a 5, 6 hour long stretch in the night, but I'm still struggling to sleep during that time, probably need some time to adjust my own sleep as well. I'm basically a walking zombie due to sleep deprivation at the moment. Is it normal that baby needs pacifier in their mouth during the full sleep time? I'm sure it's a phase, just wondering if they grow out of it or need some active nudge to wean it.

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Bitofachinwag · 14/06/2021 07:33

Yes it's normal for babies to wake up when the dummy falls out. It's a real pain for the parents! 5/6 hours at night is good at her age. Sleep when your baby sleeps! In the great scheme of things this stage won't last long.

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NonBinaryNumbers · 14/06/2021 07:42

Some babies do need the pacifier in until they fall into a very deep sleep. As soon as they finish one sleep cycle, which is around 45 minutes, they will need the pacifier in order to settle back down for the next sleep cycle. Around 8 months or so your baby will be able to look for the pacifier herself and put it into her mouth (you can even get glow in the dark ones) . Until she can do that, she will need you to do it for her.
Personally, I would grit my teeth and stick with the pacifier because it will help with her sleep in general. In a few months, she should be able to settle herself back to sleep by putting it in her mouth herself.

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FATEdestiny · 14/06/2021 13:43

Dont get rid of the pacifier. They are the single best way to get independent sleep without any crying.

Id also like to offer you a kindly meant reality call. If your baby is napping 1.5h plus 2h plus 30mins every day, this is exceptionally good napping for the age. Likewise if baby is sleeping from bedtime to 3am before waking, this is also very good for the sage.

Dont rock the boat. What you are already doing is working.

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starst · 14/06/2021 14:07

Thank you all for the good advice!

@FATEdestiny She only naps well if I sit by her side during the whole nap, otherwise just cat naps. Pity that I can't nap at the same time because of the pacifier duty, but it's nice to have some quiet time indeed.

For night, she seldom slept longer than 4 hours stretch before, but has started doing 5-8 hour stretches after I stopped using pacifier for the beginning of the night. Knock on wood that this will continue! Wink

I also noticed that she is sucking her hands and toes a lot during the day. Weaning the pacifier now would probably push her to suck fingers to sleep, not ideal either.

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starst · 15/06/2021 11:35

Just thought things were ok without pacifier for night, we started to have tough nights. Week 1 was really good, but week 2 is a big disaster. Dd cries 30m when going to bed, and then wakes up after less than 2 hours crying again. I had to feed her to very drowsy in order to settle her without a pacifier, and this won't work after 3am. I used pick up put down to settle her without feeding before, but for some reason it suddenly stopped working. She woke 4 times last night. I'm so tired and really don't know what I did wrong...

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