Pacifier addiction?

Question

Ok you guys. I've been told to let my daughter keep her pacifier while she is teething. But, she's a total addict. She absolutely NEEDS it to fall asleep. I have to go back into her room about a gazillion times to put it back in her mouth when she's going down for a nap. I really want to take it away from her, but as soon as it's out of her mouth, in goes the thumb (or fingers). Her doctor says not to worry about it, but it's driving me crazy. Now, she even needs it while she's awake sometimes...which was never the case until now. What would you do if you were in my position?

Thanks in advance for your answers. Please keep it kind...first-time mommy here

Answer 1

Awwwww let her have her binky!!! lol Girl i know your pain! When my little booger came home from the NICU she was ADDICTED to her paci. Come to find out, the nurses add sugar water to the paci's to 1) help the baby learn to suck and latch and 2) some study said it helped sooth babies. As far as I was concerned, they were trying to turn my child into a diabetic before she was 1!

She would do the suck in pop out thing that DROVE US NUTS! Until i got an idea. You know the soothie paci's that the hospitals use? Well they also have a verson with Clifford the big red dog on it. (target now sells the soothie paci's too by the way). What i did was go to Walgreen's and bought a 3 inch teddy bear and SUPER GLUED the paci to the back of his head. This let her suck and fall asleep without it falling out of her mouth when her latch got loose. And when she would wake herself up, it was right there still in her mouth to start sucking and sooth herself back to sleep.

After she got a little bigger and her motor skills improved it still worked, but she preferred her fingers and her little thumb. So now when she is laid down to sleep her thumb goes right to her mouth... then it falls out once she starts to drool and if she wakes up, she just sucks her thumb back to sleep.

The best part is, she has been sleeping ALL NIGHT LONG since she was 4 months old. She is now 7 months old. I like to think that with a combination of her learning to self sooth EARLY and us ignoring her when she started to cry (knowing good and well nothing was wrong with her) attributed to this. We stopped playing the game and giving into her demands (dag nabbit i needed sleep too!)

Our routine was about 730 she got a good warm soothing bath (most of the time she was in the tub with me anyway) then a good lotion/massage down. After that we get the last bottle of the night and story at the same time. Lay down, pop that bink bink in her mouth and then, the hardest part, walk away.

It took a few nights but when she cried i would peek so she could not see me if i saw she was fine and just being stubborn, i would walk away again. Eventually (within about 3 days/nights) she was sleeping on her own.

Answer 2

It's OK, I didn't take Logan's pacifier from him until he was 8 months old and don't plan to take Jaylea's until around then either. Is it the pacifier she is wanting or attention? Sometimes Jaylea fusses when I lay her down and I go in thinking she needs her pacifier back (it's usually 4 feet away from the crib somehow) but occasionally she has it in her hand and is just fussing to get my attention. I would think Evelyn is old enough to probably put it back in her mouth if she has it...so maybe putting several in her crib might help so that she can find one and put it in herself. She might be making the pacifier her security thing, like Jaylea's bunny blanket is for her...in which case it will only get worse. See if you can give her something else to sleep with too, like one specific blanket, toy or stuffed animal and see if you can get her attached to it instead of the pacifier. Not sure if any of this helped, but hey I tried :)

Check this weird thing out:
http://www.babydagny.com/product.aspx?pId=380