Sleep experts: to paci or not to paci with my 2 month old?

amother

Fri, Nov 29 2024, 3:57 pm

I know my baby is young. She's 9 weeks old and formula fed. However, she cannot fall asleep at night or take naps for longer than 30 min without a paci. The paci falls out of her mouth, and she cries and cries.

When I put her to sleep, I say shema while I feed her. I burp her. Her eyes are closing. Then I lay her in her crib and she doesn't sleep. She starts moving and shuffling, then starts to cry. I talk, sing, jiggle her. Nothing. I put the pacifier in and she immediately falls asleep. However, she sleeps for 5 minutes till the paci falls out. She starts moving and crying again. I replace paci. Falls asleep for 5 min. We repeat for 30 minutes till she's out for the first part of the night. However, sometimes she cries after 1 to 2 hours. I replace paci and she sleeps again.

In middle of the night, she wakes up twice to eat. I understand that - she's young. But after she eats most of her bottle, she kvetches in her sleep (not active sleeping - real crying). I stick her paci in and she is happy. I don't sleep straight between feeds because every hour or two I wake up and put the paci back in her mouth. But I don't know if I'm making her dependant on a pacifier when I should be trying to teach her independant sleeping.

I know she's little but for my older child, I was so tired after 4 months of this with her that my pediatrician said it's time to take the pacifier away, so I did. Eventually she learned but she cried a lot. I'm trying to avoid that with this one.

Any advice? I feel like she's young enough to get over the paci quickly...but how else do I get her to sleep?

amother

Lightyellow

Sat, Nov 30 2024, 4:21 pm

My second refused a paci and the first 8 months with him were impossible Crying

And I was nursing, and everyone's like - just nurse him to sleep. But that's very nice for putting him to sleep, but I couldn't keep nursing every 5 min when he woke up - I'm talking about the day time here...

OP, is your baby swaddled? That can help with her continuing to sleep once the paci falls out. Also, have you tried different pacis? What shape is the one she takes? Is it a heavy paci?

I don't have much advice except try get her to take the paci (any paci!) and hopefully soon she'll get better at keeping it in her mouth. Better she gets dependent on that than dependent on you holding her all day!

amother

Viola

Sat, Nov 30 2024, 6:10 pm

I could've written this exact post with my 3 week old she doesn't sleep in her bassinet for longer than 30 min and breaks out of her swaddle so that doesn't help either.
I kept her in the doona this night and finally she got to rest up, I don't want to get her used to the doona but as soon as I transfered her back to bassinet she started fussing and crying. What to do??

amother

Whitewash

Sat, Nov 30 2024, 7:43 pm

I also struggled with baby waking up multiple times throughout the night because paci fell out. I personally felt like it was worth it to keep putting paci back in because it was very comforting for her and eventually she was able to put it back in herself. As she got older I put multiple pacis in her crib and used glow in the dark ones so they were easy to find. I used the mam paci.

amother

Ebony ↓

Sat, Nov 30 2024, 7:45 pm

amother Whitewash wrote:

Same here did the same. Eventually they found it themselves and went back to sleep on their own. Only one of my kids took a paci and it was a sanity saver!