Saturday, March 29, 2008

the cruel side-effects of pacifier withdrawal


Well...I'm staging an intervention. Duncan is addicted to having a pacifier in order to fall asleep and it's time to stop because it interferes with MY sleep. He partially wakes in the middle of the night and needs his pacifier to go back to sleep. I laid him down for nap today and didn't give it to him. After over an hour of him crying and my nerves tiptoeing far too close to the brink of insanity he finally wore himself out.

A question for the Mother-Cats: Should a six month boy be able to sleep through the night (8-11 hours) without needing to eat? Kenna was able to sleep 10-12 hours at night at a much earlier age. I can't figure out if I'm an enabler or he really needs to eat. Any thoughts from my Kitties with boys????

Kenna is outside and had some snot on her nose. I told her to get the tissue out of her pocket and wipe her nose...she used her sleeve instead--yuck! She's playing mother & baby (the girl version of cowboys & Indians) with her stuffed Spider Monkey--a strange site.

Well, as always, the dishes beckon me :(
Liz

3 comments:

Keepin Up With the Cats said...

Hey Liz-
Brevin started sleeping through the night between 3 and 4 months. Once I knew he could do it, when he did wake up I wouldn't feed him. He did use a pacifier to get to sleep until he was 8 months. At that time, for naps he would start throwing it out of the crib and crying so I just took it away then. I can remember him crying for 20 minutes to sleep for his naps. I would take the dog outside or do whatever to try to avoid hearing the crying. I can remember it grating on my nerves too, but in the end it helped him to be a much better sleeper! Hope that helps- as far as the snot thing- Brevin has mastered the wiping of the nose on the sleeve. I have even caught him trying to wipe it on the carpet- lovely!

Anonymous said...

I was having the same issue with Anderson a little over a month ago. He was taking 2 bottles in the middle of the night every night. Then I was reading in my Pediatric Health book that by the age of 4 months, every baby should be able to go at the very least 8 hours at night with no feeding. (Unless you know they should be hungry in the middle of the night because they skipped a feeding before bed or didn't eat as much as usual.) It said to pretty much quit cold turkey if your baby is older than 4 months and still eating in the night, otherwise they will train themselves not to go back to sleep without a feeding if they wake up in the night. So we tried exactly what they suggested, which was this: if he wakes up and cries, don't go to him right away. Wait 5 minutes, if he is still crying, go into his room for no more than 1 minute and give him back his pacifier, rub his tummy/head talk soothingly to him, but don't pick him up. Leave the room, if he still cries, wait another 5 minutes and repeat. Do this for up to 20 minutes before picking him up. If you do have to pick him up, stay his room with the lights out and try to rock him to sleep. Don't feed him and don't bring him to your room or it will become his habit in order to sleep. I was skeptical because Anderson seemed so hungry everytime he woke up, I didn't think this would work. But by 3 nights later he was sleeping through the night and so was I. Now if he wakes up, I turn down the monitor and set my cell phone alarm for 5 minutes, when it goes off-if he's still crying I check on him, but most of the time he puts himself back to sleep before 5 minutes are up. This worked like a charm for me and by the book, too. We are much more rested family these days. Hope it works for you, but I realize every baby is different. (Anderson takes his last feeding at 7:30 and doesn't eat again until 7:30 in the morning, now.) Love you Liz.-Fulty

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