I have a 4 1/2 month old baby girl. She has been a very easy baby from the beginning. She has slept well from the start and has been a joy to be around. We used to do a "dream feed" where we would put her to bed at 8:00 and then pick her up at 11:00 but now wake her and feed her. It was a small feeding but just enough to get her through the night. She would wake up around 6 or 7 in the morning when we did this. At her 16 week checkup, she weighed 16 1/2 pounds. Our Dr. told us we could stop the dream feed as she was big enough to make it through the night without it. She said we may have to let her cry a little for 4 or 5 nights. Over the next week we reduced the amount of that feeding until there was no feeding. She did fine with that. The next week she woke up at 3:00 in the morning. We gave her the pacifier and she went back to sleep. The same thing happened the next night. However, each night has gotten worse since then. She started waking up repeatedly throughout the night. We would give her the pacifier and she would spit it out 5 minutes after we gave it to her. It had gotten to the point that we were going in her room to give her the pacifier 6 and 7 times a night. She never did this when we did the dream feed. We figured she was playing a game with us or something and we are going to ler her cry now. So now we go in her room after 5 minutes of crying and talk to her and tell her it's okay and to go back to sleep. We are don't touch her or give her the pacifier. We stay in her room for about a minute and then we go back to our room. The first night she cried 5 minutes, went in her room, then 10 minutes, went in her room, then 15 minutes, went in her room, and then she cried for 3 more minutes and went back to sleep. The next night she slept straight through without a peep. Well last night she got up again at the same time and we did the same thing and had the same result. My question is, should we be giving her the pacifier back when we go in there? I didn't have a problem doing it when it was once or twice. But it seems to me that she didn't want it because she keeps spitting it out. When we have let her cry, she goes back to sleep and stays asleep as opposed to when we give her the pacifier, she is waking up 4 and 5 times on average. Should we keep letting her cry a little or just give her the pacifier until she can put it in herself?
Take the pacifier away. It will be easier now than later. Try letting her cry and get herself back to sleep.
Check out The Baby Whisperer (maybe you already know about it since you were doing the dream feed). I think you need to wean her from the pacifier. And Tracy (baby whisperer) does not recommend you eliminate the dream feed until 7 or 8 months, so there's really no reason not to start it again if you think she still wants/needs it. It doesn't hurt anything or create any bad habits.
Hi C.-
We went through this with our daughter who is now 10 months old. I would not recommend giving up the pacifier yet. Recent studies have show that babies that sleep with pacifiers are at a lower risk for SIDS. There are also studies about the suckling motion being important, not just for soothing. The good news is that he eventually will be able to put the pacifier back in his own mouth. We put 2-3 in the crib so when Ella wakes at night, she can find one.
There is a thought that changes in sleep patterns can come just before a milestone leap...learning to roll maybe? Or even crawl?
Ella is at a healthy weight, but I would feed her before I went to bed until about nine months old. And she will occasionally still wake for a feeding. The "dream feed" seemed to help her make it through the night a lot better.
It is frustrating to keep going back in to give them back the pacifier, but it will end, PROMISE!
Personally I would go ahead and take the pacifer away now. It's easier to wean them off it now then later.
This was about the age I took the pacifer away from my son. He was able to chew and suck on soft toys and was content with those.
I think she could be missing not necessarily the nutrition fullness of the dream feed but the emotional fullness. She didn't mind the reduction in time until it was gone. My last baby refused anything but her natural binky. I say you both should enjoy it while it lasts ... it sounds like a beautiful time, a dream feed.
I dreaded stopping the "dream feed" as I was just sure my baby would do the same thing. So I didn't drop that feeding until he 6 months old even though I could have. Sure enough the first night he woke up and cried. The second night I snuck into his room about 15 minutes before the "dream feed" usually was and when he would be likely to wake. I slipped his pacifier in his mouth (he slept through it and just accepted it and started sucking) and left the room. 15 minutes later I snuck back in and slipped the pacifier out. I repeated this for about three days and he never woke up the wiser. The fourth night he wouldn't take the pacifier in his sleep, just kept his lips tightly shut and that was the end of that.
I was so excited as I wanted him to sleep at night without his pacifier like he had been doing since he was three months old. I think he just needed the "sucking" time and it took just a few days to rework his sleep patterns to where he didn't wake up looking for it.
It is worth a shot if you haven't found a solution. You definitely don't want to be constantly having to go to re-plug in the middle of the night. That is what he started doing when he was 3 months old, which is why we stopped using the pacifier at night to begin with :-) Good luck.
Stopping the feeding may be the problem. Is she big enough to sleep though the night without one, yes, but if the pacifier is not "pacifying" then she's hungry. They have growth spurts where they are very hungry all the time. She could be in one. I would suggest a 3am feeding for awhile and then wing her back off them in a few weeks.
Or teething, yes this early too. Try some pain reliever and oragel. If she was sleeping and is not now, there's more likely a physical reason opposed to a "game". IMO
stop giving her the pacifier. she will never learn to self soothe if she gets too attached to it. my daughter is 13 months and still wont sleep without her binky. or play, or ride in the car, or pretty much anything without her binky. i never wanted to give her one in the first place but she was a very persistent nurser and would suck ALL night until she fell asleep which made me sore. i would keep doing her dream feeding and ignore what your dr told you. seems like all the advice my doc has given me in those types of regards was not what my baby wanted at all. i know its hard to try not to teach them to sleep on thier own so early, but they thrive on everything always being the same, so i would wait until she is older for that. i could never let mine cry, but we worked it out and now she goes to sleep all by herself and has since she was about 8 months. try swaddling also...it disturbs them less when you move them to thier own bed. i had to nurse ava once a night around 4 am until she was about 6 months old. waking up once only when she was hungry wasnt too bad! so feed that baby...
My son takes a paci at night and sometimes does this. But, it seems to coincide with teething. He wakes up because of the pain from the tooth and then is soothed enough with the paci to go back to sleep.
I would keep giving her the pacifier. I had to do the same thing with my son. I don't think that she is spitting it out because she does not want it. When she goes to sleep, her body relaxes and she drops it on accident. Since she cannot put it back in her mouth, when she wakes up she cries for it. If you are comfortable using a pacifier, just keep giving it to her. It sure is much faster to pop it back into her mouth than to do a night time feeding! As she gets older, she will be able to put it back in herself. The sucking at this point is soothing for her. Hope this helps, and good luck!
