Which is a harder habit to break...

a pacifier to fall asleep or rocking to sleep? Right now I rock DS to get him to sleep (most times.) I know I'm not supposed to. He doesn't use a pacifer to fall asleep, but I thought I may try it instead of rocking. But isn't that substituting one problem for another?

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

how old is your child?

DD#1 I rocked to sleep for about 3 months then she just stopped wanting me to do it.

DD#2 either nursed or used a pacifier until about 6 months.

In the beginning, most people are not fortunate enough to have a baby fall asleep on their own so they usually need something comforting...

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

DS use to need both to fall asleep but I've managed to wean him off both and he is 4 1/2 months.

With rocking, I had to stop simply because he was getting too heavy (I'm only 4'11 and a total weakling) I could not continue to rock him at 15 lbs bc he only liked it when I was standing and rocking, not sitting.

With the pacifier, my pediatrician said he was old enough to cry it out. Really hard to cry with a paci in your mouth!!

He's been doing pretty well with CIO. I mean, he does not like it one bit when I put him in his crib, but he will cry from anywhere from 5-15 minutes, if he does cry at all, and fall asleep on his own.

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

Well, DS never took a pacifier, but I have heard people talk about how if the paci falls out of the babies mouth while they are asleep, they might wake up crying because they want it back in. So you might end up with several problems with the pacifier.

As for rocking to sleep, this is solved by CIO.. or a version of it. We did it with DS and it worked really well. Was not that hard for us to get him to learn to fall asleep on his own.

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

He used to take the pacifer, of DH gives it to him and that's what happens. That's even more annoying to me than getting to sleep in the first place. That's why I was hesitant to try again.

Message edited 9/5/2008 11:24:04 AM.

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

DS hated the pacifier. And my thoughts were that I didn’t really want him to sleep with one because I was afraid everytime if fell out he would be crying. I rocked DS to sleep for 6 months then all of the sudden he just didn’t want to be rocked at night. Now if I tried to rock him at night he would just cry.

We still rock him for naps, but I think that has to do with not having scheduled naptimes and he is with my ILs 3 days a week and they find that easier for them so I keep doing it at home too to keep the consistency.

Re: Which is a harder habit to break...

I would say that the rocking to sleep is harder to break---then again, my son wasn't huge into the rocking...when I did it he fell asleep, but he did not need it to fall asleep.

I just got rid of the binky at 15 months, because he wasn't into it anymore...he did used to get it to go in for a nap, or for bed (and when he was younger, I gave it to him when he was fussy). It was very easy for us to get rid of it, but I think it was because HE decided he didnt want it anymore.