The nighttime pacifier game

[RiverandJulie]

My DS (10 months) generally sleeps from 7pm-6am, waking up once or twice to eat (except during teething, colds, overwhelming days etc).
The problem is, every 2-3 hours he wakes up and fusses until I put his pacifier back in his mouth, and he goes back to sleep.

The thing is, it is really easy-he is in bed with us or in the sidecar crib, so we just reach over and do it. But, I know it is wearing on us to not have the longer stretches of sleep, one of us is waking up a little during each pacifier event.

Any suggestions?!

[yentroc]

No suggestions, we do the same exact thing. (DS is also 10 months old)

We actually call it the "pacifier game" too.

I played the same game with dd until she found her thumb at 7 months old. I really don't think ds will find his thumb but I did notice one time the other night he sat up and must have brushed his hand across his paci, because he put it back in his mouth and fell back to sleep!

I'm thinking we just need to have like 10 pacis laying in bed with us.

[verde]

We used a clip. That made finding it much easier. After she figured THAT out, DD was able to find it herself and stopped fussing.

[3xMama]

I litter DS's crib (and formerly the area in our bed he slept in) with pacis. He seriously has a good five of them in there. One at the head, the foot, and on each side plus the one in his mouth. More sometimes, since that's where I throw any clean not in use pacis I find laying around. I did the same thing with DD. It works out fabulously!! At this point, as far as I can tell, he rolls around, wakes up a bit, finds a paci and out he goes! We all sleep better and he's got a few "toys" to play with first thing in the morn or before/after naps. Highly recommend it!!

[RiverandJulie]

Part of the problem is that he doesnt look for them, even if he is awake during the day, he picks them up and chews on them, but doesnt take them and suck on them to soothe. I have to put it in his mouth. He is physically able to, just doesnt. (although this morning, he found one and put it in his mouth, so maybe he is learning).
So, when he fusses in the middle of the night, he is not even looking for the paci, I have to do the work.

So, as I think more about this, he is maybe having issues with self soothing...not too surprising, he was a preemie and had some prenatal issues (we adopted him).

Any advice on helping a baby learn to self soothe?

[mamazee]

My first didn't use a paci, but my second does.

At that age, I just put it back in her mouth. Now (20 months), she likes to sleep with a paci in her mouth and one in each hand, and she can put one in her mouth without really waking up. I can't remember when she got that down, but this is probably a temporary problem anyway.

[beebalmmama]

My 10 month old also does this. He used to just look for it and pop it back in his mouth. But about a month ago he started to grab it and throw it......too many times with me cursing and trying to find it in the dark. I don't know what to tell you.

Although my ds is also nursing, so I think maybe he's saying he'd rather nurse than have the paci, even though half the time he'll still take the paci and go back to sleep.

I usually have a back up paci, stashed in the bed where I can easily retreive it if I can't quickly find the other one.

[JudiAU]

The pacifier game is better, much better, than other games babies like to play at night. I'd scatter pacifiers around his sleep area. He might do it himself. My DS never, ever learned but DD could do it at 6m. DS was astonished.

[2xand2y]

I put sewed velcro dots to my DD's bumper and hot glued the softer side to her paci. At night she had one in her mouth and several (4 or 5) stuck on the bumper. If she woke, I would take her hand and gently guide her to a paci and help her put it in her mouth. It only took a few seconds longer than if I were to get if for her myself. We also played with them for a few minutes each day to help her get the idea. It took less than a week for her to start getting them when she needed them. I also used this plan for my two other children who needed pacis. I would "re-load" the bumper after our nursing sessions just to make sure she had a high success rate.

[apple o' my eye]

Originally Posted by 2xand2y

I put sewed velcro dots to my DD's bumper and hot glued the softer side to her paci.

What a great idea!

We sleep side car with a body pillow in the transition between the 2 beds. I have at least 3 paci's tucked under the body pillow about shoulder height. My DD (2 yo) sometimes figures out to reach under there and get one. At least I can locate one easily to poke back in her mouth in the middle of the night. Lately she has only been waking up 1-2x per night and will sometimes find her own paci.

[sahmmie]

You can train him to put it in his mouth by himself by putting the paci into his hand instead of into his mouth each time he wakes up. Stick it in his hand and then lift his hand to his mouth. After a few nights he might start doing it himself. Once he does that you can sew one of those paci clips onto his jammies. That's what I did with my first baby, though she was older than your son. It worked perfectly! Ahhhh.... no more paci game!