Paci Dilemma: To Keep or Not to Keep?

Sleep
1

I have a three-month-old who’s generally a mellow baby but LOVES her paci. She “sleeps through the night” in the sense that she’s in her crib from 8 PM-7 AM, but wakes up anywhere between 2-7 times a night for me to pop the paci back in. She goes back to sleep immediately 99% of the time. She does go down the first time without the paci when sleep pressure is highest, but it’s in for all naps and won’t nap without it.

I’m working on teaching her to put her paci back in, but 3 months is still so young, so she has a long way to go to learn the skill.

She has me trained to be the paci fairy, and it’s really impacting my sleep. I go back to work soon, so I’m worried about those bad nights when my sleep is broken so many times.

Has anyone else run into this? Should I cold turkey it? Keep it and keep working on her self-replacing it? One day the paci obviously has to be completely taken away. In my head, I see her at 90 years old at her funeral, and she rises out of her coffin and goes, “EH!” And my great-great-granddaughter will approach her and hand the paci over, and then she finally rests easy :joy:

2

We’ve gone through the same period, around 3 months as well. The nail in the coffin was when she realized she can grab and pull the paci out. It was a drama show every evening and at every night wake-up. After about one month, she stopped sabotaging herself and started sleeping better.

3

@Wil
My daughter does the same thing at 2.5 months and ohhhh the drama when she pulls it out on her own :joy::joy:

4

Sage said:
@Wil
My daughter does the same thing at 2.5 months and ohhhh the drama when she pulls it out on her own :joy::joy:

OMG I managed a video of my son pulling it out and then being in utter shock :joy:

5

@Ira
Lmao yes!! Their little expressions like ‘are you kidding me’ while we’re like, ‘YEAH YOU DID THAT!’

6

I would pay so much money for a robot that does this. Honestly, if I wasn’t concerned about health and safety, I would have tried to DIY one. My baby is 9 months. I have been the paci fairy for so long, but to my delight, he no longer wakes up just because he’s lost the paci.

7

@Jai
With our baby around 5 months, we put multiple pacis in the crib near their hands. Now, when we would go place the paci in their mouth, we would give it to their hand, and in a few weeks, they could get it in themselves.

8

@Jai
That’s why I’m wondering if it’d be easier to just get rid of them now.

9

Drue said:
@Jai
That’s why I’m wondering if it’d be easier to just get rid of them now.

We took it out at 5 months, and it was easy. She cried the first night but we held her and comforted her. She started sleeping better that same night.

10

Drue said:
@Jai
That’s why I’m wondering if it’d be easier to just get rid of them now.

If you have the fortitude for it, I think do it lol. Though maybe wait until 4 months when they can start learning to self-soothe.

11

The last part made me lol :joy:

12

This is just a phase. My LO didn’t really figure out how to put a paci back in her mouth until like 8 months. 3 months is way too young to expect it.

13

Kieran said:
This is just a phase. My LO didn’t really figure out how to put a paci back in her mouth until like 8 months. 3 months is way too young to expect it.

I’m actually a pediatric PT, so while yes 3 months is too young to expect this, I believe in practicing the building blocks to develop the skill.

14

Same thing with my 5-month-old lol, I’ve just accepted it because he’s too lazy and frustrated to put it back in his own mouth.

15

Our pediatrician recommended we remove the paci once she falls deep asleep, so she won’t feel it falling mid-sleep cycle.

16

Mia said:
Our pediatrician recommended we remove the paci once she falls deep asleep, so she won’t feel it falling mid-sleep cycle.

I wish this would work for us. It’s not the falling out that wakes her, it’s falling back asleep without it.

17

Mia said:
Our pediatrician recommended we remove the paci once she falls deep asleep, so she won’t feel it falling mid-sleep cycle.

Came to suggest this! I will take the pacifier out as soon as my LO is zonked.

18

My son spits his out with such velocity that when he wants it back, I’m searching the entire bassinet for it.

19

Uma said:
My son spits his out with such velocity that when he wants it back, I’m searching the entire bassinet for it.

Same! She sometimes sounds like a baseball player spitting out sunflower seeds :joy:

20

I ditched the paci cold turkey at 19 weeks because I was done being on paci call. It was a few rough nights followed by bliss. I wasn’t willing to wait months for him to figure out how to replace it himself.