Two Sundays ago was the farewell to the pacifier.
I also let her "cry it out" at nights.
Does Madelyn look the worse for it?
We have been pacifier-free for two weeks now and I think we have come out a happier trio overall. I made this decision somewhat haphazardly when I realized I was using it indiscriminately on Madelyn. It was the easiest thing to do. Oh, you're making noises- pacifier goes in!- you look sad, angry, frustrated- pacifier goes in! You need to be quiet now- pacifier goes in! Go back to sleep- pacifier goes in! I thought that we would just use it for naps and sleeping, but then I would find myself plugging her in all the time, just to keep her- you guessed it- pacified. While it was much easier to plug her in than to hear her cry, I realized that we were both suffering because of it. She was unable to soothe herself without it, and I was not getting sleep at night because I would plug her back in the instant I heard her make noises. I wanted Madelyn to be able to fall asleep without it, and I wanted Madelyn to be able to put herself back to sleep when she woke up in the middle of the night. Sadly, she was not able to accomplish these things because her mother was an enabler.
Two friends of mine lent me some books on baby sleep: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and Good Night Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep, Stay Asleep, and Wake Up Happy. Both are great books on how to understand baby sleep patterns and sleep needs. I learned that timing is key to get baby to sleep well and to nap well during the day. I also learned that tears are unavoidable if you want your baby to sleep well. Try as you might to help your baby, there are things (like sleeping) that he/she needs to learn on his/her own and until he/she gets the hang of it, he/she is going to cry out his/her frustration since that is his/her way of communicating. Finding ways to help your baby get into a sleepy mind-set will ease the transition for the baby and the parent.
Pacifiers, unfortunately for us, were not helping Madelyn soothe herself, because it would fall out as soon as she was completely asleep and when she'd wake up she wouldn't know how to fall back asleep without it. During the day, it was easy enough to plug her back in, but at night, I would just get up and nurse her, plug her back in, and wait for her to do it again in another couple of hours. And this was wearing me OUT. I was reading Good Night Sleep Tight and it was stressing the importance of self-soothing and how as parents, we are more like coaches-helping the baby fall asleep and not doing it for them- and by plugging Madelyn in all the time, she was never learning the skill of soothing herself!
So, two Sundays ago, I plugged her in to fall asleep around 8pm. Around 11pm she woke up, so I nursed her, but this time (on a whim) instead of plugging her in, I threw a blanket on her and walked out. I waited to hear her angry cries and demands for the pacifier. Amazingly, all I heard was groggy fussing and then silence. We did this dance a few more times that night, but I figured we could do it. It was nap times and the initial putting to sleep that I knew would be the battles, so I had to be more intentional about helping her transition to sleepy-mode (no more swinging to sleep for us!). I could see Madelyn was so confused because she was wanting something to suck on, and I wasn't plugging her in. She was having such a hard time with it too, fists and blankets just aren't the same as silicone! It was hard for me to watch her "suffer" when I knew how to fix the situation. Nathan had to keep reminding me that, she wasn't hurt, that she was trying to go to sleep. We're still working on getting the timing right, but when you catch her getting sleepy and you put her down at the right time, she goes to sleep so quickly!
I read a little further in the book, that she should be sleeping ten to eleven hours at night without a feeding for her age, and I was blown away! There were a few nights where she would sleep nine hours at a stretch (and I would get six), but those didn't happen consistently, so I figured it was because of growth spurts or catching up on calories that she would cry out at night. But the one night she cried every three hours (which she hadn't done since she was two or three months old!), I knew I was causing her more problems by going to her every time she cried. I realized at night she would wake up and she was probably thinking," I'm up. What do I normally do when I am awake? I eat. I must be awake because I need to eat." So if I went to her at night, I'd end up nursing her to sleep, because nothing else I did helped. I had to make another decision that if she cried before 3am, I would not go to her. I made this decision for the both of us. For our health and for our sanity. It took her a week, but for the last two nights she has slept twelve hours in a row, and I've gotten eight in a row! I don't think I've slept eight hours in a row since Madelyn's been born. We should've been doing this AGES ago! If I thought six hours of sleep was great, eight hours is AMAZING. Can I ever sleep ten hours again? Probably not, but I'll take eight for as long as I can.
Reward for successful sleep! Single serving cookie!
Taking the pacifier away has not been easy, but I think it's been the best thing for us. And listening to a baby's cry does not settle well on a mother's ear. Putting Madelyn to bed definitely requires more work on my part, but I think it is worth it if I can grow a happy human being. Maybe we shouldn't have given it to her in the beginning, but looking back, it was the best thing for us at the time. Now that it's gone, Madelyn is still trying to find something else to suck on, and she's not always pleased with my soothing efforts, but I think she is a happier baby overall. Of course not every baby is the same, and everyone needs to be sensitive to baby's needs. I can't say we're a success story yet. But I definitely can tell how far we've come in the short time we've implemented the new sleep regime and schedule. We're on a much better schedule that we should be able to keep. It's also better for her to get this all down now BEFORE our big trip back to the East Coast.
What do you think? Pacifiers-Nay or Yay? When do you say good-bye to them? What about night-waking?
And look! The little rascal is sitting up on her own! Now if only she'd learn to roll over...
- Posted with the help of my iPad!
I think you are a really intuitive and caring Mom! Yay for 8 hours of sleep! I'm not getting that, and I don't even have kids yet ;)
ReplyDelete