Sleeping Through the Night - New Berlin,WI

I know my paci kids wouldn't transition to the thumb and my thumb kid was the one who didn't sleep through the night till after nine months. He was actually crawling out of his bed an 7 months, and walking. I wonder if putting several pacis in his bed around his head might help??

Hi C.,
Is your son getting enough rest during the day? I know that the more tired my son was at bedtime, the less restfully he'd sleep...
I, too remember wishing he was just old enough to find, grasp and pop that blasted thing back into his mouth! LOL
Since he's 7 months old, you might want to consider trying to get him off of the pacifier. The longer you wait the harder it will be to get it gone! Good luck!

We had the same issue around this time (8ms or so) with our daughter who had slept in her crib since about 2 weeks old (just hated her bassinet). Its probably not what you want to hear, but we got so exhausted with "plugging her back in" so many times each night we went through two nights of Cry It Out (or in this case, letting her find her own paci when she woke). We put 3-4 pacis in the bed with her each night. The first night was bad. I'll be honest. But after that it was much improved and after the second night we were back on track - and back to being well rested!! :)

My son is nearing 1 year this week and we have had this same issue with him around the same time as your son. Is your son teething? We figured out quickly that this was part of the reason our son was waking up so much and so we ended up using infant tylenol and motrin. I can feel your pain for getting up so much during the night to put the pacifier in because we did that exact same thing. The only thing that ended up working for us was to first make sure he was getting enough sleep during the day (if he didn't get enough sleep during the day it seemed he wouldn't sleep as well at night) and then we just toughed through a few nights of letting him cry it out. It was really hard (who wants to hear their baby cry) and also makes for a couple of very long nights for you as well hearing your son cry but it did work for us. We went back and forth about stopping the pacifier but in the end just decided to use it only during naps and night time. So what we do is lay him down and give him his pacifier and if it comes out after that oh well. It did take a few nights and like I said they were really hard. We are now sleeping peacefully through the nights again. He does wake up occasionally still but can now go back to sleep on his own with out his pacifier. If you do decide to just let him cry it out put a fan in your room to muffle the sound of his cries...this really helped us for those first few nights of trying it. Oh yeah and I forgot to say that when we tried this there were a few times that he cried for an hour before he went back to sleep so if you can just hold out I think it is well worth it.

Hope this helps.

p.s. when he would wake up we would sometimes check on him just to make sure his legs or arms weren't caught in the crib rails but we tried to do it with out him noticing us coming into his room.

H

I feel like this could be my post. My son is 7 1/2 months and was sleeping very well at night until about 5 months old. Now he wakes up 4 times a night maybe more, just for the pacifier.. it drives me nuts. And we still have him in our room in his co sleeper since he wakes up so much!!!! i can't wait to hear mommies thoughts on this.. I feel like Ryan sleeps very little during the day, maybe 2 naps 20 minutes each at most.. ive tried it all, sleeping earlier, sleeping later, ceral in his bottle, bath before bed.. ughh everything.. now i know this will pass but i just wonder what happened to my sleepy baby! ;)

Your son's sleep pattern is well within the normal range for a 7-month old. Dr. Paul Fleiss's book Sweet Dreams has a lot of good information on what is going on in babies' brains and why they wake up so often. As my babies became more mobile (rolling over, on the verge of crawling) they began waking up more at night than they had a few months earlier.

You will have to figure out a solution that works for your family. For me, getting out of bed and walking across the room or to another room is much more disruptive to my sleep than just waking up without having to get out of bed. At the age your son is now, we found co-sleeping helped us all sleep better and feel more rested.

I don't agree with the advice below to get him off the pacifier. Babies have a basic need for non-nutritive sucking. It is best not to deprive them of that need at such an early age.

Is he hungry? maybe he's going through a growth spurt and needs a little extra food/nursing/ bottle.

Re the pacifier--are you comfortable with him sucking his thumb? Babies can usually find that pretty easily.

K. Z.

this is normal for your child. i would say unfortunatly, but its not really that you should be disappointed about it, just realize that this is normal for your child. he just isnt as easily soothed, and instead of feeling disappointed because he isnt sleeping the way you think he should, he is sleeping and reacting to things the way he will for his personality. i can tell you first hand that this "high needs" "accept no substitutes" personality doesnt go away, and its fine, normal, and an asset to his personality. :)

you just do what you have to do. chances are hes going to still be hungry at night, even if hes eating solids. so you might still have to nurse him or give him a bottle once or twice. try that and see if it helps. also, maybe some tylenol before going to bed IF you think that hes teething. make sure hes not too hot not too cold, no scratchy things in his clothes, or even that its not too quiet. run a fan, white noise, soft music whatever works for your child.
just keep trying different things to get the sleep you need. if hes in another room, its always a good idea to try to have him in your room, that way if you do have to get up hes just a few steps away. you can also put the crib right next to your bed so that you dont even have to get up. OR search youtube or the internet for making a crib into a sidecar bed : its a really easy and realiable way to make your baby comfortable in bed. and take it from me, tis a lot easier to deal with him waking often if hes right there; you hardly have to wake up at all when he needs somethign so simple. :)

He'll soon learn how to put that binky back into his mouth!! My son doesn't take a binky most of the time but he still wakes a few times a night and most times, he just wants his back rubbed and will go back to sleep!

Try to go to bed as early as you can and just know that eventually you'll wake up and realize you had no idea how you slept all night.

You could try to let him cry it out - at least for a few minutes before going in to get him. I'm not a fan of that, but I know you'll get ideas for that!