If your child wakes in the middle of the night

looking for their pacifier, when did you just let them CIO?

DD is 3 months old and we were doing so well with the sleeping but for the past few nights, she will wake at 5 and 6 am crying and will stop as soon as we put the pacifier back in (most of the time it had fallen out hours and hours earlier)

When can we attempt to not give it back to her and almost let her CIO?

Re: If your child wakes in the middle of the night

DS didn't learn to put it back till about 6m. But he will only do it if he is only slightly disturbed. If something is really bothering him, he will scream and not even bother to look for it.

So, I think first examine, is it just the paci or more?

Next, I think most people on here think CIO earlier than 6m is not right, but IMO it depends on the baby, and some take to it better than others. I know some on here, have done it as early as 3-4 months, with great success. I don't remember who, but it took abandoning the paci altogether.

IMO, 3 times a night for a paci at 3m is reasonable. If you taught them to soothe on it, and they loose it, and wake up, they need it. If they are dropping it every 10 minutes and screaming, its nothing to do with the paci, but something more to do with it not being enough to soothe them. Either they need your help, or they need more drastic measures ... cio maybe?

Re: If your child wakes in the middle of the night

So sorry to crash but as an speech therapist and more importantly as a mother of two babies I had to answer your post....Why do you think you have to eliminate the paci right now? Its perfectly ok for a baby to have the pacifier at this age in fact its direclty linked with reducing the risk of SIDS in you infants. Both my babies used their pacifiers until 6 months of age and to be perfectly honest I didn't sweat how much time they used the paci at all...I felt that it was helping them to learn to self soothe and by 6 months they were no longer interested in it. As an SLP my advice is that by 9-10 months of age you want to begin addressing eliminating the paci so that by a year of age its gone. Its only after this point that it can become a potetial problem for babies and they should have learned to self soothe by this point already. But if that paci is regulating him in the middle of the night read his signals, clearly he's not ready for you to take it away just yet and he's letting you know that....So my advice is follow his lead and enjoy a good night sleep

Re: If your child wakes in the middle of the night

Never. I always put it back in until she learned to put it back in herself.

Re: If your child wakes in the middle of the night

We started letting him cry for it a few weeks ago, so right before 7 months.

Re: If your child wakes in the middle of the night

Thank you for the advice.
I am not saying I have to eliminate the pacifier completely, it just seems to not only be interrupting our sleep but MORE IMPORTANTLY it is interrupting her sleep. She use to sleep for an extended amount of time - feed and then sleep until the morning for the next feeding.
Now (like last night) she woke up at 3, 4, 5 and 6 but did not need to be fed at all. she passed out as soon as we put the pacifier back in. I was wondering if that was a sign for us to do CIO with the pacifier because it falling out seems to be waking her up.