Pacifiers

I get asked a lot about my opinion on pacifiers. Let me just come right out and say that I am not against pacifiers!

There is 100% a time and place where they definitely come in handy!

We’ve all seen a family be spared from a major tantrum by the quick place of a pacifier into baby’s mouth. Whether the baby was cranky from overtiredness, had fallen and hurt themselves, or had something taken away from them – the pacifier, like magic, cures all.

There is also that time when a quick pop of the pacifier into your newborns mouth helped soothe them back into sleep after a short 30 minute nap.

And lots of babies are born with a strong sucking reflex that a pacifier can help to soothe!

So they really can be useful and I encourage you to try it out.

From my perspective as a sleep expert – the problem with a pacifier is if a baby begins to use it as a prop to get into sleep, and then wakes frequently throughout the night needing it replaced.

So let’s start off by looking at why a baby can’t just fall asleep with a pacifier and then peacefully sleep throughout the rest of the night.

Sleep, for babies and adults, happens in cycles. Many of us are under the assumption that we fall asleep at the beginning of the night, go into progressively deeper sleep as the night goes on, and then gradually come out of it as morning inches closer and closer.

And while it is true that we go from light sleep to deep sleep and back, we actually do this several times within a night. For adults, one sleep cycle typically lasts between 90 and 120 minutes; for a baby, one sleep cycle is usually closer to 50.

If your baby can’t go to sleep at bedtime (or naptime for that matter) without a pacifier in their mouth, there’s a strong possibility that they rely on the pacifier in order to get to sleep. So when they get to the end of a sleep cycle, where they transition back into a light stage of sleep, there is a chance they will be roused back awake, at which point, even though they’re tired and want to sleep, they don’t know how to bring themselves back into sleep because “Hey! Where’s my pacifier? I can’t sleep without it!”

And if they can’t find it, or if they haven’t figured out how to replace it on their own yet, they’re going to get upset because they can’t get back to sleep – so they’ll cry until someone comes and remedies that situation.

That right there is basically the definition of what we call a “sleep prop.” Sometimes, it’s a feeding, sometimes it’s rocking, sometimes it’s mom/dad being in the room, and sometimes it’s a combination of several crazy things, but the bottom line comes down to the fact that baby is relying on this ____ in order to get to sleep in the first place. And then they’re not able to get it when they wake up in the night either.

More than anything, if there was a “secret” to getting your baby to sleep through the night, it’d be this – getting rid of sleep props. It is, hands down, the most important component to getting your little one to sleep peacefully from the time you put them down at bedtime until the time they wake up (happy and refreshed) in the morning.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “That’s IT! That is exactly what is happening with my baby!” then you’re probably going to want to take some steps to get rid of that pacifier.

The best time to do this is actually at the same time as when you sleep train – after all, you’ll be making quite a few changes to their sleep, what difference does one more change make?

And when it comes to breaking bad habits – I definitely am a huge fan of the cold-turkey route (though I know it isn’t feasible for everyone), and this situation is no different. Every age group tends to do better with this option – and they will quickly learn how to adjust.

There may very well be some crying involved, as there tends to be with many other changes, but I am confident that your baby can learn how to sleep without a pacifier!

If you need help ditching it for good, set up a free 15 minute discovery call to learn more about package options and how we can come up with a plan together to get your entire family sleeping through the night!