Did weaning from pacifier improve nightime waking?

[cww]

Our daughter is almost 7m and has been sleeping terribly for a month now, waking repeatedly in the night (10+ times).  Since she sleeps with a pacifier and sometimes when she wakes just putting it back in her mouth is enough to get her to go back to sleep (she can easily do it herself, but for some reason won't do it when waking at night or for naps), we thought that maybe there was a heavy dependence on the pacifier that was keeping her from staying asleep when it fell out.  So yesterday we started weaning her from it.  We have been able to get her to sleep without it, but she hasn't been waking any less - actually she's been waking even more during naps, after 30min-ish, and she's been really cranky during the day.  So I was hoping to hear some BTDT stories that would make this feel worth it. 

For those of you who have weaned off the pacifier - did the baby stop waking so much at night afterwards?  If so, how long did it take to see results?

Did you find you needed to wean completely, or just from using it to get the baby to sleep?  (In other words, if we let her have it during the day when she is awake, is this likely to undermine us not giving it to her at night, or have no effect at all?)

Any other tips or experiences to share that I haven't thought to ask about?  Thanks for taking the time to read my post!

[OSUvet]

I have no advice at all but can commiserate and am hoping to hear some insightful responses. My 6mo has been doing the same thing for about 5 weeks now, but he also thrashes and wiggles and whines so much all night that I am finally trying to get him in to see the ped to make sure nothing is wrong since it seems to be getting worse and worse...

[K1329]

Both of my kids started night waking again around 6 mos. due to teething issues? Could that be the case?
I found my attempt at paci weaning actually increased wakings & quit trying to wean.
I'll be interested to read others experiences!

[cww]

Hi OSUvet and K1329 - sorry your are also having sleep issues!  Thanks for dropping in with a bit of commiseration, though!

It's been a few weeks now since we've (pacifier) weaned, and here's our experience.  She still wakes at night, but the intervals seem to be a bit better: she'll sleep for 3h, then 2h, then 2h, then 1h, and then up for the day or repeated waking every 15-30min - this has been more or less the pattern since we weaned from the pacifier.  This is an improvement from the month of every 30-60 min wakings, but that just might be a coincidence.  At the same time, we worked on taking her off the breast and then letting her go to sleep after than, without letting her fall asleep while nursing. 

Now she will sometimes detach herself from the breast after nursing and then go to sleep, but she will thrash around like crazy if we don't hold her tight to get her to go to sleep at that point.  It definitely takes longer to get her to sleep most of the time - with nursing to sleep or using the pacifier, she would fall asleep pretty quickly and without screaming or crying.  Now she pretty much always fusses some, and sometimes she will do this business of seeming to fall asleep and then screaming bloody murder 20 seconds later, and then after you've calmed her down repeating this about 20 times (often screaming and crying the whole time with her eyes closed).  No idea what that is about. 

She doesn't seem to be in pain - she just seems to have trouble staying asleep, or putting herself to sleep consistently.  She has on (very) rare occasions in the past fallen asleep totally on her own. 

She does have some teething signs (drooling after several months of not drooling) and chewing on everything in sight), but since she has been doing this for 3 weeks now, I'm not sure that it means anything.  She is at the age, though when I would expect some teeth soon. 

I've read through almost all the sleep books at this point.  (I refuse to read Weissbluth or Mindell since I'm offended by some of the excerpts I've read from their books, but I've gone through Pantly, Karp, Kurcinka, Sears, West, am halfway through Ferber, and have just received Reichert.)  The Pantly methods helped with the getting to sleep, but had no effect on staying asleep.  I'm not interested in CIO methods particularly, but I'm hoping some of those books (like the updated Ferber) might have some helpful diagnostic or other problem-solving techniques that could help. 

All of these books seem fundamentally the same in that they all basically have some method by which you do something to gradually wean your child off of sucking, or rocking, or whatever "crutches" they have of getting to sleep, with the idea that this is the only way for them to go back to sleep on their own when they wake in the middle of the night.  They are all based on the premise that you can reduce something gradually without crying or without too much crying.  But our experience with our daughter is that there is no gradual weaning from anything - if she wants to suck herself to sleep, then no amount of trying to get her off the pacifier or breast before she is asleep will work - she'll just start screaming bloody murder if we take it away before she decides to come off, and then there is no hope of calming her down again quickly (for example).  So we just pulled her off way early, and then just quickly moved to totally unrelated ways of getting her to sleep.  But we can't then reduce the rocking or singing or whatever even gradually, b/c if we stop before she is in a deep sleep (about 10 min after falling asleep), she will just wake and start screaming. 

The books all also say that you have to put your child to bed as soon as you see the sleep signs - but with our daughter, this just doesn't work - it will take an hour to get her to sleep if we do that.  For her, she does sleepy signs for a bit, and then gets really cranky, and if you walk around with her for about half an hour after she hits the cranky stage (in a sling or carrier or just in your arms - but we have to move around a lot), then she might go to sleep with only about 5-10 minutes of rocking, sometimes less if we really hit it at the exact right moment. 

There is also repeated advice that we should move bedtimes earlier (like 6:30-7pm), but our daughter goes to bed at 9pm, and no amount of trying to get her down earlier will work without 1-1.5 hours of traumatic attempts to get her to sleep.  She is very happy when she is awake, so I'm assuming that she is not actually sleep deprived, and that this idea that if they go to bed earlier they will sleep for longer stretches just doesn't apply in her case. 

I'll keep reading our books and trying things, and report back if we get any further improvements!  (If anyone else has had any luck, please also let us know!)

[mandalamama]

could reflux be a problem? my daughter was born with GERD (as was i). i thought i'd never need a paci but it turns out our saliva has healing enzymes in it that prevent esophageal damage, so she had the "soothie" brand teal ones. what helped her fall asleep at night more than a paci was letting her sleep in a swing, next to the bed. i think it's because it kept her sitting up at an angle. i'd set it for 30 minutes swinging and if she fell asleep i'd let her just sleep in the swing. i didn't use the paci unless she was already sleepy and i'd take it out right away, she stayed asleep unless i left it in, then she'd wake up and fuss for a minute or so and fall back to sleep from the swinging motion. i also worried about her waking and trying to get out, so i buckled her in safely. sometimes i could get her in bed at the right angle in my arms, but she really loved the angle of the swing sometimes. she was a sound sleeper in that she didn't roll around until morning light, i was very lucky!

also, i wonder if she loved the swing because we wore her in a wrap so much? some of her best naps were in the sling while i was moving around. :)

[cww]

mandalamama, thanks for the reply!  Reflux has been mentioned several times, but I'm just not sure that it's an issue.  I can't totally rule it out, though.  When she was sleeping on a toddler mattress on the floor next to our mattress on the floor (all summer), I tried elevating the head of her mattress to see if it would help, and it didn't seem to make a difference.  She may not have slept on it enough, though, to make a difference - it seems to me that she sleeps best if I hold her really tightly right next to me (not so great for my sleep, since I don't want to move at all and wake her), so she tended just to end up on our mattress (now we are back at home together in the same king sized bed). 

We have a swing, which we haven't used since 4 months, since it didn't seems to help that much.  Its much too gentle a motion - our daughter really wants to be rocked more quickly and firmly.  She also doesn't sleep so well in a sling/wrap/carrier - this seems to be a good way to keep her calm when she enters that cranky-sleepy-but-not-yet-ready-to-actually-sleep-just-yet stage, but then she does better if we put her in the bed or car seat to actually sleep. 

I'm still not sure if taking away the pacifier helped - sometimes she sleeps much better (waking 2-3 times per night), and sometimes, like last night, she wakes repeatedly in the middle of the night - it's all just random enough that I have no idea if it made any difference...

[OSUvet]

Just want to report back and second the idea of looking further into reflux as a problem. My son has been on Prevacid since about 8 weeks, so I knew that reflux was a problem but did not initially think that it was related to his most recent sleep issues since he has been well controlled for a several months. But as his sleep got worse and he seemed more irritated, I contacted our pediatrician and her first recommendation was to increase his dose of prevacid since as baby gets bigger and time goes on the medication can be less effective. I was disappointed, as I was hoping to try weaning him off meds soon, not increase them, but we have all been suffering so much with the lack of sleep and it helped SO MUCH when he first started on it. So we tried it. He immediately started sleeping 3 hour stretches again (which is the longest he's ever slept at once anyway). This I can handle! (For the record he has always slept on an incline and on his left side, and I am very careful about avoiding allergens in my diet, but that alone is not enough for him)

So, I know that some babies sleep poorly without a medical reason and that medication isn't the fix-all - but it could be that your baby is very uncomfortable at night like mine was. Good luck!

ETA: Your comment about swinging/gentle rocking not being soothing to your baby is very familiar. Mine also seems to require rather rough rocking/bouncing. I have wondered if this is because of his discomfort and the more vigorous movement helps him "drown out" the feeling of a burning tummy and drift to sleep...

[cww]

Thanks, OSUvet, for your reply!  For those of you with babies who had reflux, how did it get diagnosed?  Did the doctor do some specific kind of test?

Also, was the only sign poor sleeping at night, or were there also other signs during the day?  (Our daughter is happy during the day and doesn't show any signs of pain when awake.  I would also say that she doesn't seem to be really in pain when she wakes up - just generally cranky and restless until she goes back to sleep, and she definitely still wants to nurse 3 times per night.)

[OSUvet]

cww - Your entire story sounds eerily familiar, including the late posterior tongue tie diagnosis and 3 months of excruciating breastfeeding pain. We had the exact same trouble!

Anyway, as far as reflux diagnosis I think they can test the acidity of the reflux or the esophagus or something like that but more often if the signs sound like reflux they will just try medication and see if it helps. My ped had me try mylanta at first and it helped a lot but was so short acting, so we switched to zantac and then prevacid which has been the best for my boy. When he was a newborn he was VERY fussy, arched in pain after eating, and would spit up even while eating, and he also had noticable silent reflux where he would gulp and then start crying. But just recently when he started waking every hour he did not have any of those signs during the day, and the increased dose of prevacid still fixed the problem. I think if the symptoms are more mild they do not bother baby so much during the day, but at night when there are no other distractions and laying down may aggravate it.

My baby is also quite high needs in general and nurses about 3 - 4 times after he goes to bed even when he is sleeping well in between. But when his stomach is irritated he wants to nurse every hour and it is probably because milk buffers the acid in his stomach and temporarily makes him feel better.

Good luck, the sleep deprivation is so hard to deal with...