Pacifiers
they can be a blessing and a curse
when it comes to your little one's sleep.
I personally have had pacifier baby,
nothing sucking baby,
and a thumb sucking baby,
so I've done it all,
and I know how frustrating pacifiers can be
when it comes to your little one's sleep,
but I also know how they can be really useful sleep tools.
Today I am answering your sleep question,
"How do I remove the pacifier
for four and a half month old?"
And in this video,
I'm going to talk you through some strategies
to get rid of the pacifier,
at this tricky sleep age of between four and five months.
So stay tuned if you're interested to find out
if the pacifier is the right fit for you and your baby.
Hi, I'm Nicky.
I am a pediatric sleep expert,
mother to three beautiful children,
and one of the founders of Little Ones.
Through my own experience of motherhood,
three times,
I learned a heck of a lot.
I tried and I failed millions of different
strategies, methods, routines, advice
when it came to my baby's sleep.
This contributed to my desire
to want to help other families
who are in the situation that we were in.
We created Little Ones,
a company devoted to your little one's sleep.
We understand how important sleep is,
not only to a baby's growth and development,
but to the functioning of a family,
to stable relationships,
and how important it is
to the emotional and mental health of parents.
Through our online sleep programs
we've been able to help
over 200,000 families around the world
improve their little one's sleep.
We would love to help you and your family
toward better naps, settling, and night sleep.
So make sure you check out our website
www.littleones.co
and see how our sleep programs could help you.
All right,
so let's talk pacifiers.
Pacifiers, as I said,
can be a really great settling tool for babies,
and that is because babies love to suck.
Sucking is a completely natural biological thing
for a baby to do.
Sucking is the way that they are fed from birth,
and so quite aside from sucking for feeding purposes,
sucking, interestingly, when there is pressure
on the roof of your little one's mouth,
and that is through a breast or through a bottle teat,
through their thumb, through a pacifier,
the pressure on the roof of their mouth
actually stimulates endorphins to be released in their body.
Amazingly, it makes them feel good when they are sucking,
which is why a lot of babies love feeding for comfort,
because it literally, sucking gives them comfort.
It's not necessarily the milk element
that gives them the comfort,
it is the sucking.
So sucking can be a really useful tool for us,
when we're talking about an infant's sleep.
Prior to the four month sleep regression,
where a baby's settling dependency
becomes quite a big deal,
so prior to four months dummies, pacifiers
can be a really useful settling tool
for your young baby.
Newborn babies often settle quite well with a pacifier
because as I mentioned,
the sucking is really calming and comforting for them.
And if you want to use the pacifier
as a settling tool prior to
that sort of four month regression period,
then that is a really good idea.
I would just advise a little bit of caution
around making sure you introduce it
once breastfeeding is well established,
if you're choosing to breastfeed,
and also just be careful,
because sometimes with a young baby,
giving them a dummy or a pacifier can mask hunger.
So they might actually be hungry
when they're crying in the night,
and whether or not you think they're hungry,
you might sort of put the pacifier in their mouth.
Just be really careful that you're not
replacing food or milk with the pacifier.
That's all I'm going to say about that.
Once your little one
reaches the four month sleep regression,
their brain changes in the way that they approach sleep,
they start to have more mature, differentiated sleep cycles,
much like we would have,
and that means that they wake fully
between each sleep cycle during the day and overnight.
Now once they wake fully at the end of a sleep cycle,
and they come through the light sleep and they fully rouse,
they need whatever method of going to sleep
they used to go to sleep,
they need that replicated,
in order to go back to sleep again,
to nap for longer during the day,
and to sleep for longer periods overnight.
So if they are used to sucking to go to sleep,
and that might be a bottle,
it might be breast,
it might be a pacifier,
they need that thing put back in their mouth
in order to go into their next sleep cycle
and go back to sleep,
it's the only way they know how to fall asleep.
This can be problematic
if we're relying on pacifiers at this age,
because your little one
does not have the physical competency
to replace their own pacifier.
So once they've entered sleep,
they enter a light sleep phase,
they then coming into a deep sleep phase,
and their muscles relax,
and the pacifier will fall out of their mouth,
once they're in their deep sleep.
Then they come through another period of light sleep
before they wake up.
When they wake at the end of that cycle,
something's different,
the pacifier's gone,
and they need the pacifier and the sucking
in order to go back to sleep again,
so they cry out for you,
you find yourself getting up a hundred times a night,
simply to replace the pacifier,
so that they'll go back to sleep.
The second you pop it back in their mouth,
they go back to sleep again,
for the next hour and a half, two hours,
until they wake up and it's fallen out.
If this doesn't sound like you wanna sustain,
we need to look at how we can remove the pacifier
from your little one's sleep situation.
I'm just gonna preface that by saying
that by the time your little one
is around seven, eight months old,
they can start learning the motor skills
required to replace their own pacifier.
If you're willing to ride out
the multiple night wakes for several months,
then you can begin to teach your little one
to replace their pacifier further down the track.
If that isn't appealing to you,
then we can definitely help you
ditch the pacifier for good at this point.
So let's look at the strategies that you need
to remove the pacifier from sleep,
in a four to five month old baby.
The first thing I'm going to suggest
is that you make sure that your little one
is perfectly ready for sleep.
No strategy,
no amount of sleep training,
nothing is going to work to get that pacifier out of there,
if your little one isn't totally ready to go to sleep,
if they're overtired, or if they're undertired,
or if they're hungry, or if they've got wind,
they're not ready to go to sleep,
it's gonna be impossible to get rid of the pacifier,
especially without a lot of crying.
So the first thing you need to do
is make sure that your little one
is having perfectly age appropriate naps,
age appropriate awake windows,
and that they're definitely not hungry heading to bed.
If you need some help
with getting those naps and awake windows
right for your little one's age,
check out our sleep programs,
because we've got all of that covered
from birth to three years old.
From there, once you are sure that your little one's
in the zone for sleep,
they've had the perfect amount of naps and awake times,
what I would recommend doing
is replacing the pacifier
with something else,
that is easier to gradually reduce.
So your little one sees the pacifier as a sleep association,
I would line up a whole bunch
of other sleep associations first,
white noise, baby sleeping bag, super dark room,
maybe a cuddly or comforter little thing,
a Lulla doll,
if that's something that you're interested in,
get a whole bunch of other
positive sleep associations in place,
so then when it comes to their sleep,
the first thing you need to do,
is implement a hands on settling strategy,
while they still have the pacifier.
So while they're still using the pacifier,
side settle them to sleep for example,
which is our technique
where you hold your baby on their side,
in their bed, firmly, and you pat their bottom rhythmically,
until they fall asleep,
and then you roll them onto their back obviously,
for safe sleeping.
Or you might choose
to hold them in your arms and pat their bottom,
or rock them,
or pat their tummy while they're in their crib.
Some way that you can physically,
actively settle them to sleep,
while they're still got the pacifier.
Once you're all right with that,
which they should still be at four months,
they should still be happy to be actively settled to sleep,
then we remove the pacifier,
destroy it,
get rid of it,
it's gone and there is no going back,
remove the pacifier,
continue to actively settle your little one to sleep,
they will protest,
they're going to protest because something is different,
but you're right there with them,
you know they're not overtired,
you know they're not hungry.
They are okay,
your hands are literally on them,
comforting them.
If they are protesting,
it is the change that they don't have the pacifier anymore.
You can be confident that you are there
providing comfort for your child,
because you are,
they are not distressed
because they are abandoned,
they're distressed
because they don't have the pacifier anymore.
But that is the decision that you are making
to benefit their longterm sleep.
Hands on settle them to sleep,
this is for their naps and their night sleep.
The pacifier is gone,
do not give it to them for naps but not nights,
do not give it to them for nights but not naps,
it is out of the equation,
do not use it to resettle them
if they wake during the nap or overnight.
Just get rid of it for now,
we need it gone.
They need to learn
that it is no longer associated with sleep whatsoever.
Actively settle them until they're asleep.
It will only take, maybe, I mean,
it might happen as quickly as one full day of sleeps,
that's naps and overnight sleep,
in that 24 hour period,
maybe two days at this age,
and I'll have forgotten about the pacifier,
that'd be used to you settling them to sleep.
It's still not ideal but it's easier than the pacifier.
Once they're sweet with you settling them to sleep,
all you need to do at that point,
is gently ease back on your active settling.
And so I would be then following
one of our self-settling methods in our sleep programs.
We have a whole bunch to choose from,
depending on what you're currently doing
to settle your baby to sleep.
So if you're currently side-settling your baby to sleep
in their bed,
you just do that,
but until they're 90% asleep,
not fully asleep,
and you let them do the last little bit on their own.
Then until they're 80% asleep, then 70%, you get the drift.
You just ease back on your active settling of them,
gradually, day by day,
until eventually you're able to
pop your baby in their bed,
all their positive sleep associations are in place,
they're perfectly ready to go to sleep,
and they'll just lie there and go to sleep,
and it sounds like a miracle or witchcraft.
I promise you it isn't,
it's just you helping your baby
relearn the sleep skills that they have,
and they just don't know they have them.
So the pacifier is out of the equation,
you have helped your baby learn to fall asleep on their own,
which is a really crucial, amazing skill that they have,
and you watch,
their night sleep will improve like that.
Now that they're no longer waking in the night
for the pacifier to be replaced,
or for you to rock them back to sleep,
their night sleep should drastically improve.
I know you're going to ask me,
"What happens if I wanna
introduce the pacifier later on?"
You do you.
If you wanna introduce the pacifier
when your baby's a bit older,
amazing,
teach them to replace it themselves,
and you are on to a winner.
It is an easy settling tool,
once they can replace it themselves.
Or if you just wanna use the pacifier
for if they're grouchy in their awake periods,
that's also a really good idea,
so you wanna dissociate it from sleep.
Say you're out and about,
and your little one's getting grouchy,
you wanna use the pacifier just to pacify them,
in their awake time,
yep, great, but I would recommend
just don't introduce it in that context,
until you're well and truly in the clear
of it being needed for sleep.
So give it at least a couple weeks,
after you ditch it for sleep,
that you reintroduce it as a settling tool.
(swooshing)
You can also use it to settle your baby
in the lead up to sleep,
maybe it's part of their bedtime routine,
and then take it out
before you actually pop them into their bed,
so that it's helping them get in the zone for sleep,
but it's not associated directly with falling asleep.
There are a lot of ways
you can still reintroduce the pacifier
into your little one's life,
if that's something you want to do.
But if you are really struggling
with replacing it all night long,
at that critical sleep age of four to six months really,
then I strongly suggest you look at removing it
from their sleep situation,
using the method that I've outlined here.
I hope that has helped you on your sleep journey,
get over the hurdle of the pacifier.
If you've got any more sleep questions,
please feel free to ask them in the comments,
and we always jump on and respond to everybody below.
Make sure you subscribe here
to our YouTube channel
so you can get lots more videos like this one,
and check out our website
to see how our sleep programs can help you and your family
through all of the sleep challenges to come,
www.littleones.co.
Thank you very much for watching and I'll talk to you soon.