I was planning on my next post being about infant potty training, but I am still working on it and I just have to interject with this rant. I HATE THE PACI.
You know who loves the paci? My child. We waited 2 months before letting her try one because we wanted breastfeeding to be established, and when we finally gave it to her it was like heaven. Just plunk that thing into her mouth and she's a veritable Maggie Simpson. She loves it so much that she won't go to sleep without it, and then she rolls over in her sleep and it falls out and she screams bloody murder until I trudge to her room and stick it back in. Repeat ten times each night.
Enough is enough. We are quitting the paci cold-turkey. I am on day 3 and it has been a challenge but I think we might be turning a corner. I have to offer other kinds of soothing in order to replace the paci because she doesn't seem to want to soothe herself and everyone tells me you can't really let her cry it out till after 6 months (though I'm not sure I want to let her cry anything out ever).
So I'm basically walking around the apartment for hours with 17 pounds of baby trying to make her go to sleep. Meanwhile, she's sucking on anything that gets within an inch of her face - my shirt, my arm, my neck, my ear, whatever. But when she does finally go to sleep, it's much more solid. I now only get up once per night to feed. No more running laps between our respective beds all night.
So the fight continues. I will defeat the paci!
Do you have any good paci weaning stories or tips?
I started off hating pacifiers. I was shocked and seriously unhappy when I arrived in NICU to see my several hour old baby already sucking happily on one.
ReplyDeleteWhen we came home from the hospital, I pulled it out of his mouth sure I would never ever give it to him again.
But when my doctor suggested that one of the reasons we were waking up 8 times a night was that I was nursing him to sleep, a pacifier seemed like a happy medium. I no longer nurse him to sleep, but he does take a pacifier (to sleep only. I really hope to avoid day time pacifier use). Our sleep is a bit all over the place still, but seems to have improved. (The last few nights he went down at 7 or 8, woke at 1, 5 and 8 for the day).
Good luck!
Ugh, it's a tough call... I truly believe that she needed the paci when she was going through a rough patch of colic or reflux (not sure what it was) between 4 and 10 weeks of age. But since she has calmed down from that, I think it's no longer necessary, but just an old habit. Though I wouldn't be thinking about taking it away from her if she weren't having such a problem keeping it in while sleeping. There's always a trade-off!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you're on the right track, and better to do it now than later (My sister remembers having a funeral for her pacifier at age 7. Long story.) Anyway, the twins were never really into pacifiers, but their blankies are a different story. I hadn't even realized how attached they were until I put them down one night while "Pinky" and "Rex" were in the wash. I couldn't figure out why they weren't sleeping--I seriously thought of everything from teething to the flu. Then the laundry stopped, I put the blankies back in their cribs, and they were out in about 3 seconds flat. We now have extras, just in case!
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