Q&A: pacifier/swaddling double-whammie (4-month-old!)

Claire writes:

"Our daughter has always responded well to being swaddled.   We swaddle her with her arms in at night and out for naps.  She won't sleep long at night with her arms out - I've tried.  When she's swaddled, she goes to bed around 7 or 7:30, wakes up once to eat between 4 and 6 am, and then is up for the day around 7:30.  This is a perfect schedule, and I'm not complaining about it - I don't even mind feeding her in the night.  She's quick and goes right back to sleep with a little cuddling.

So here's the problem - she wakes up anywhere from 2 to 8 times a night and fusses.  All it takes (usually) is putting her pacifier back in (in the dark), and leaving the room.  Every once in a while she'll need to be cuddled back to sleep. 

I don't feel great about letting her cry, because her arms are swaddled, so she couldn't even put her hand in her mouth if she tried, and she's way too small to find the pacifier and put it back in (if her arms were free).  So I'm not sure what to do.  Do I suck it up and replace the pacifier when she cries (my husband bears the lion's share of this job) or do I unswaddle her arms, and assume that after a few nights of bad sleep, she'll get better at finding her hands/holding her lovey?  Do I need to let her "cry it out" or delay my response time?  The few times that we've let her cry (for just a few minutes), she seems to get more and more frantic the longer she cries, so I'm not sure if letting her cry will even be helpful for her. 

Any advice you have on this would be great!  She's a good sleeper - this pacifier/self-soothing thing is just frustrating, and I'm not sure what to do about the swaddle."

In the immortal words of The King (Elvis Presley): You're caught in a trap; you can't walk out. Because you love her too much, baby.

This is one of those completely time-dependent problems. Kids younger than this are so clearly helpless that there wouldn't be a question of replacing the pacifier. And kids older than this have usually broken free of the swaddle (although some kids stay swaddled for months more--if your kid is still happy with the swaddle, then keep going with it). The real issue, though is that the baby's waking up all the time, and that's just because 4-month-olds do wake up all the time. All. The. Time.

That's the real issue here--the 4-month Sleep Regression. Because otherwise, she wouldn't be waking up and realizing the pacifier was out of her mouth. Parents of older babies will testify that they can fall asleep with the pacifier in and have it fall out at a certain point and not realize it, because they're still asleep.

You know I think this whole "force them to cry when other things soothe them better" thing is utter crap, especially at such a young age. All you need is sleep, not to take an ideological stand about some alleged "habit" that's going to change once she goes through the developmental spurt anyway. Essentially, you just need to figure out how to get through this phase without having anyone in your household completely lose it.

If I thought loosening her hands would make her start sucking her thumb or fingers if she couldn't find her pacifier, I'd suggest it, but I've never heard of this happening. Pacifier kids seem to stick with pacis, thumb-suckers (represent!) stick to thumbs, and finger-suckers stick to fingers. PLEASE, if anyone out there has a kid who would switch back and forth to suck different things, post it in the comments, because I'd be interested to hear about your experience.

Also, if your 4-month-old can find her own pacifier or lovey in the crib in the dark in the middle of the night, strap yourself in because you are raising a true super-genius. Most 9-month-olds can't find their missing pacis or loveys, so if your daughter could at this age it would be an indicator that she was another Doogie Howser.

Basically, I'm saying that you're kind of stuck right now. I mean, you could try to wean her off the pacifier entirely, but that would really suck at a time that no one's getting much sleep anyway. Same with weaning her off the swaddle. And making her cry, when other things get her to sleep just fine and without stress, just makes no sense. The good news is that she'll start sleeping better in general in a week or two, so this won't be a huge issue anymore. You probably just want to divide up the pacifier replacement job (*cough* trained assistant monkeys *cough*) so neither of you takes the hit all the time. And keep lobbying for better parental leave in this country, because it's just ridiculously unfair that everyone has to be back at work at the exact time a baby's sleep goes haywire.

Anyone else feeling the pinch of 4-month-old sleep? Is it just me, or did a lot of people's babies wake up cartoonishly early this morning?

Comments

[Julie]

Oh honey, I've been there. I didn't take the time to read what everyone else said (sorry!) but I went through this too. My husband and I split time sleeping in the bedroom next to my little girl's for a month or so. I couldn't handle letting her cry (and held on to that until she was *gasp* 10 months old.....) She was swaddled in a miracle blanket and that paci would fall out. I do agree that even if she had her arms, she wouldn't have been able to find her paci. (We tried it...) I hoped putting 6 pacis in her mouth would help; surely she would turn her head and find one, right?, but she's just not there yet. And I tried weening her off her paci but that just proved to be worse. And the swaddling? I didn't stop swaddling her until after her feet didn't fit in the miracle blanket. I have to say it is brutal. HANG IN THERE! You're doing everything right, so please don't doubt yourself for a second! And believe me, your child will sleep through the night eventually!

[beth]

"Is it just me, or did a lot of people's babies wake up cartoonishly early this morning?"

Ha! 4a.m.screaming because it was pitch black (power was out, snowstorm) in her room, once up she announced she was tired and needed a nap. That made 3 of us.

[hope]

We went through the same thing(other than he was breaking out of the swaddle and getting very angry about it AND losing his dummy (pacifier) 8 times a night) and it all turned out well so I thought I would share what we did.

Firstly - we stressed about it. We couldn't decide which to take away first - the dummy or the swaddle. OUr sleep guru said do the dummy first but we figured he would still wake up because of the swaddle. So we did the swaddle first. It was the hardest. A week of bad sleep and he FINALLY got used to sleeping in a sleep sack. We had to do the old "one arm in, one arm out" routine. One night he woke every 40 mins so we put him back in the swaddle at midnight as we couldn't take it anymore. Anyway...we did one arm out at naps, then after a few days, that same arm out at night, then both arms out at naps then both arms out at night. Naps were rough as he would only sleep one cycle but like I said, we got there in the end. He had the dummy the whole time.

So...then we took away the dummy. We just couldn't handle getting up so many times. And we figured we were just teaching him not to sleep with a piece of plastic in his mouth. And he wasn't sleeping well if he was having to cry 8 times a night. etc. etc. for us...it was just time to do it. I consulted the sleep guru and said "but how are we going to do it??? What are we going to do???" We never thought he would sleep without it. He would go to sleep so peacefully with it. Anyway...with pen perched over paper I waited for my guru's response. She simply said "here's what you're going to do...you're not going to give it to him." Simple as that. We thought he would cry for hours and we stocked up with food and books for an "all nighter". So... long story short....it took one night. We stayed right by his crib and patted and shh'd and it took about 30 mins for him to fall asleep. he was up 2 hours later and we did the same thing. Then he had a feed at normal feed time, and I think we had one other wake-up and that was it. It was so damn easy and we were SO stressed about it. We did the same thing at nap the next day and within a few days all was right in the world and no more 8 wake-ups to reswaddle or stick in the dummy. He slept much better.

Sorry to ramble on. I just remember this time so distinctly (same age - 4.5 months) as it was so stressful. But the solutions ended up easy enough.

Good luck.

[ks]

Mine did switch from pacifier to fingers/thumb or nothing, but it was very early. He only used the paci in the first 6 weeks or so, and never after that. He would use his hands, but rarely. He just sort of gave up the sucking.

And, yes, he started waking up absurdly early then...and still does. I went back to work at 4 months, and he was often going down for nap #1 when the nanny would arrive at 7:30!

[Nancy]

BabyB went through this with her paci... it wasn't until she was about 6 months old that she started figuring out how to put her own paci back in herself. (She was sleeping in a swing at that time, too.)

Oh, happy day when she transitioned beautifully to the crib and learned how to put her own paci in! :-)

And yes, Moxie, BabyA work up at 2:30am today. ACK! We had no power last night, so with the super-quiet and my general edginess, it was a tough morning.

[Nancy]

OOps -- forgot to add that we had (and still have) BabyB's paci on a paci keeper ribbon too. At least that way it never gets too far away. It's kind of funny now (@ 19 months) how she'll reflexively fumble on her left shoulder to find the ribbon in her sleep.

[meandmrb]

We went through this with Mr B at around 3 1/2 to 4 months and then again around 7 1/2 to 8 months or so. Not the swaddling (too friggin' hot where we live to even consider it!), but the middle of the night binky replacement routine. He was still sleeping next to me for the first round, so it really wasn't that big of a deal to just pop it back in before he was even fully awake. If he continued to fuss, that meant it was time for a feeding. The second time around involved a bit of a sprint across the hall. Both times he just grew out of it in a few weeks and went right back to sleeping through the night without a peep. He still uses a pacifier at night and at nap times at 15 months of age.

It's a bit counterintuitive to me, the idea that you should take away something that helps a baby to sleep right in the middle of a period when they're having a hard time sleeping. I'd tend to try to introduce changes to routine at times when things were going more smoothly.

[Alex]

I had the same experience with my son and, yes, just dealt with it by getting-up-again-to-give-him-the-pacifier.

It was a nuisance, but it didn't actually last that long. I don't think we were still swaddling him at that point, but even so, he was not yet capable of finding and replacing his pacifier himself. It was a drag, but survivable, though it didn't always feel that way at the time. He slept in a bassinet in our bedroom, and that helped -- not far to go.

Now that he's older, I often leave several pacifiers near him in his crib to increase the probability he'll find one in his groggy half-awake state and place it in his mouth, rather than just knocking it out of the crib as he flounders around.

[parisienne mais presque]

The only thing I have to add is that this is around the time we started being rewarded for our laziness.

You see, the only decent sleep advice I got from anyone other than Moxie ("By Any Means Necessary" and "This Too Shall Pass") was "walk don't run" that I read somewhere. Give them just an extra moment to settle themselves before you help, the theory goes, and they might surprise you.

Not that we applied this conscientiously or even consciously most of the time. We were just SO SO SO tired, even though le Petit was in a crib right next to our bed, it took me a minute or two to rouse myself sufficiently to pick him up and nurse him. (He never took a pacifier, so I had to adjust the pillows, sit up, pick him up -- it felt like a great effort at the time.)

As with everything, it depends on the baby's needs and personality, but this delayed response turned out to be just what our son needed. At 4 months, it only worked 20% of the time, if that, but now at 19 months he soothes himself back quickly to sleep most of the time (now that we're seeing the end -- dare I write this -- of the 18 month sleep regression.) And we still have to be ready to intervene quickly when he is actually winding up, not down.

He never accepted a swaddle or a pacifier, so I've no idea how that might change things.

[Amy]

my DS switched what he sucked on. he was a pacifier kiddo from week 1--only took it for sleeping, generally, but with it he slept pretty darn well for a tiny baby. then around 5 months, we went through an awful sleep regression. he suddenly stopped taking the pacifier and we were totally at a loss--we didn't know what else to do to help him sleep. he wanted nothing to do with the pacifier. he ended up finding his fingers, and ever since then, has sucked his first two fingers (upside down--really unusual). he's never used a pacifier since 4-5 mos, but at 18mos, still loves those fingers.

[Amy]

Claire -- this was totally us. I had these same questions, linked together -- swaddle/paci dilemma.

I think you can separate the two issues, because she probably won't find the paci on her own, unswaddled, anyway. Not quite yet. We just powered through, replaced the pacifier over and over (and over). Eventually, she was rolling over and had to be weaned from the swaddle (we started with one arm out, then two arms out, etc), but it was still awhile until she could find the paci on her own and replace it.

In other words, I don't think the swaddle is what's standing in the way of her pacifier-independence, so it it helps her sleep, keep swaddling. You'll be slave to the binky for awhile still, but eventually she'll be out of the swaddle and capable of finding the paci (or one of several strewn around -- that was our technique).

You aren't doing anything wrong, it's just a waiting game, and it will pass!

[Mogget]

Are Paola and I the only ones with arm suckers? My DD sucks her left wrist, and has a large red/purple callous where she sucks. I have never seen a wrist/arm sucker before. She's 18 months, and is still going strong on the wrist sucking, and has never taken a paci.

@ all the mommies going through the 4 month sleep drama, you have my sympathy!

Oh, and both of my babies were up for the day at 5 AM. Definitely early.

[Sarah V]

If it makes you feel any better my baby is 7 mos old and the 4 month sleep awfulness seems like forever ago. Life is way more fun now. At the time I felt like I would never sleep again You will. Sleep again.

[mdtrimble]

I remember C's 4 month sleep regression - by the 3rd night of only getting 1-1.5 hours sleep at a time (my husband can sleep through all but the most insistent cries), I thought I was going to loose it. I actually managed to get C to switch from paci to fingers - I started out during her naps, and just didn't give her a pacifier. As long as she was tired, she'd go to sleep after ~20 minutes crying (if not, I'd get her back up & play with her some more). After a week of that, I noticed she was sucking her fingers on a regular basis. This was about the time the whole sleep regression thing started. So, after the 3rd night of no sleep, I decided it was time for her to find her fingers at night - and she did, relatively quickly. Now she's an avid finger sucker, and uses the pacis only as toys (she loves knawing on them).

[Christina]

I didn't read every post, so please forgive me if I am repeating. I had the same problem with my little guy. From the time I put him down for the night until at least 10, he would cry for his pacifier every time it fell out.... I was sprinting up the stairs sometimes every 10 minutes, trying to get there before the whine became a wail.

Interestingly, when I started putting him to bed earlier- between 6 and 7 instead of 7 and 8- it stopped completely. I'm guessing that he was overtired by the time I put him to bed and therefore unable to get into a deep sleep easily. I'm just guessing, though.

One thing that I had considered (but luckily didn't need it) was a "wub a nub" which is kind of a little beanie baby that holds the paci in place. You put it on the baby's chest.

http://www.geniusbabies.com/wubbanub-pacifiers.html

Good luck. This will all be a distant memory sooner than you would believe!

[NIkki]

hugs to you, we found a Peke Moe www.pekemoe.co.nz was the answer for transitioning / weaning our baby from the swaddle. It was instant for him and he slept all night just like he had when he USED to stay swaddled! we also attached his paci to the front of the Peke Moe sleep sack with a short piece of fabric (less than 10cm, and it was pinned to the front of the peke moe) he learnt really fast how to put it back in.. worked well for us! good luck!

[Claire]

Wow - thank you everyone! I have lots of tips - most of all it helps to know that it's just a phase. It seems that we probably will stick to popping the pacifier back in for a while, but eventually she won't need it. And we started swaddling with one arm out - it seems to be working, but I'm in no hurry to have both arms out!

[Colleen]

I have been having this exact same issue. My three-month-old son doesn't like the swaddle any longer but was waking up a bunch during the night in which one of us would run in there and stick the pacifier in his mouth. I was exhausted by the morning, even if he slept a good amount. I also don't mind the feeding in the middle of the night because it only lasts a couple of minutes and then he's back out.

So yesterday I read Chapter 5 of Dr. Ferber's book on sleep associations. It made a lot of sense to me, perhaps it will make sense to you. I started yesterday with his afternoon nap to put him down without the pacifier. The first two naps were hard for him to get settled. Bedtime was a lot easier. And get this...he slept from 7:45pm to 4:00am without so much as a peep. I fed him (5 mins. top) and he went back down easily until 6:45 am. I feel like a new woman.

Letting him cry for those two naps was very difficult. But for the first time in a long time, my little guy woke up from his naps and from the night with a huge smile. He finally got some consolidated sleep.

I know a lot of people don't like the Ferber philosophy, but I can say that for this situation it made a lot of difference. We're sticking with it because we saw such a huge pay off.

Good luck!

[fahrrad]

Dies ist ein großer Ort. Ich möchte hier noch einmal.

[Pucci]

Re: paci/thumb sucking
My little girl is 4 months old and switches from paci to thumb everyday! I put her down in her crib, swaddled, with a paci (for bedtime and for naps) since she was 3 months. During the day she will suck her thumb when she gets drowsy or upset. She will stick her thumb in her mouth while in the stroller, and fall asleep sucking it - but still takes to the pacifier every night and naptime! I find it rather interesting as well. That day at 3 months old when she found her thumb - i thought she'd never go back to the paci....
So glad to have read this post. I have been having issues with her sleep recently (the past 2 days or so). Until now she has been a pretty good sleeper. After a 10:30pm feeding, wakes up at about 5am for a feeding, and then sleeping until 8! Recently she has seemed very "hyper" - babbling a LOT! Even when she is cranky and exhausted - shes babbling. Loudly. For 20-30 minutes! She hasn't been napping well at all! Waking up every 30 minutes etc. and when i put her down to sleep, she lays in her crib and babbles away and laughs out loud to herself, refuses the paci etc. I leave her in the crib babbling until she starts crying (sometime 10-15-20 min) and then once she is crying she will take the paci and fall asleep - only to wake up shortly thereafter! I've been going NUTS!
So happy to hear about this "4 month sleep regression" - doesnt help my headache at all :), but sure makes the issue easier to deal with! Thanks! Looking forward to next month ;)

[SJohnson]

I have to say, reading some of these stories I feel a lot better knowing that we're not the only one going through this. Shelby is 4 months old on 4/18 and we have a sleep schedule, she does fall asleep with the binky and goes down between 7-8pm. She'll sleep pretty well for about 4-5 hours then the fussing for the binky starts anywhere but not every night, sometimes it's only a few times and often times(especially at the beginning of her sleep cycle) she just fusses but falls right back to sleep and doesn't really need her binky. It's always a toss-up. I'm pretty lucky as my husband and I are on a schedule, I'm a working mom so he helps out a lot. I keep on reading various articles surrouding the cry=it-out method and the no-cry method and I just decided that I'm tired of reading all the methods, I'm just going to follow my motherly instincts and just be patient with her and hopefully it won't take forever.

[Vivienne]

I just googled swaddling baby at 10 months to see what alternatives / suggestions were out there and came across this forum. So reading down, it looks like there is this 4 month sleep regression thing that I seem to have missed out on.

My little one (baby number 2) is 10 months next week and has never slept through the night. Up until 8 months he was waking every 2 hours to be fed - despite eating 3 good meals during the day and milk (albeit not enough). His nursery suggested swaddling him at night, as they had been doing this during the day and it seemed to work for naps, so I started this around 9 months. However, being a 9 month old boy, he is obviously a great escape artist and easliy wiggles free (not just arms, but right outof it!) when he is stirring. He does however settle much better when swaddled and also during the night once fed also settles better. I have also switched to formula for 2 night time feeds now (he's on formula during the day too) and he has been going 4 hours from bedtime, then 3 ish hours, until I feed him early morning in bed with me (I am at this stage too tired to sit up!)
The last 2 nights I have put him back into his sleeping bag, but he has really not settled well and each feed has taken longer to get him back to sleep...so I am now looking at swaddling him again, if only so we both get some decent(ish) sleep.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated....!

A very tired Mummy in the UK

[Coach outlet]

That's great stuff. Since I'm also very computer-centric, that's a way that would work very well for me. appreciate hearing from you! I'm thinking of a couple others I'll write up.Thanks you so much for all your kind compliments! I'm glad you find this site helpful!