Dropped Pacifier Update

This has been a long 11 days!

Jacob with his daddy

Things went pretty well the first day I dropped the pacifier, as I told you in my post We did It! We dropped the Pacifier!

Then came the next day. And life decided it had a sense of humor :)

Jacob came down with a very bad cold/virus AND started to get 3 teeth (because this is what always seems to happen anytime you try to make any changes, am I right?!). Have I ever mentioend my little guy, who is normally pretty easy going, is a bit of a baby when it comes to pain and illness? And I mean crying and fussy most of the day and up crying for hours during the night. He pops back to normal once he starts to feel better, but it is a long handful of days and nights!

Anyway, I considered giving Jacob back the pacifier when he came down with the cold but decided to keep up with the no pacifier plan. He normally gets frustrated during colds because he can't suck on the pacifier so it made sense to keep it out of the picture, especially since he was doing pretty well with it gone.

What happened next:
Outside of the waking up crying at night which I'm sure was due to illness, here are the issues we had  1) fussing for a few minutes before going down for some naps and bed, 2) waking a little early in the morning some days 3) some short naps  (1.5 hours, but short for him)

After a week Jacob no longer fussed for a few minutes before going to sleep and no longer woke up early in the morning. I'm pretty sure these two things were, at least in part, related to the dropping of the pacifier. He did continue waking up at night crying for a couple days and had some short naps. These are no longer an issue. I feel pretty confident the night waking was due to illness (and a little teething) since it is typical of illness for him and also started on day 4. As for the short naps, I'm not sure what caused them, but they did seem to be more illness related since he woke up screaming and extremely distressed.

After 11 days my little Jacob is sleeping like usual, has two incisors broken through and has a few sniffles and a mild cough remaining. Whew! I'm glad this last week is over with. I'm exhausted. There have been too many sick people in my house and very little sleep!

In case you're wondering, here's how I went about things with the pacifier.

I gave Jacob a pacifier whenever he wanted until 6 months of age. This was mainly for sleep since he was perfectly content without it while awake and I didn't try to push him to take it. After 6 months of age, I tried to use the pacifier for sleep times only. If he was sick or we were out and about and missing naps he could have it then. Pretty much, I used it when it made sense for him and me (because I like to have a happy baby too :)

I tried out multiple pacifier holders for Jacob. He got attached to the myblankee pacifier blanket that I talked about in the post plush pacifier holders. I gave this to him once I unswaddled him. My plan was to detach the pacifier when it was time to wean him from it and he'd hopefully have an easier time at it since he'd still have his blankee to cuddle. You don't need a plush pacifier holder, but please get some kind of lovey for your child early on. A pacifier should not be their only lovey!

When the time came, I got rid of all the pacifiers. Some people will poke a whole or cut off the tip but I preferred to do it cold turkey.  I gave Jacob his {sans pacifier} blanket to hold once I got him up in the morning. I figured this would help him get used to the blanket without the pacifier so it wasn't such a shock when I put him down for a nap.

At nap time I cuddled with him a bit longer than usual with the blanket in his arms. I put him down with a positive and confident attitude and walked out like usual. He cuddled right up to his blanket and has gotten more attached to it by the day. If it wasn't for his illness, I'm pretty sure our only issues would have been a few days of fussing before falling asleep, a handful of early morning wake ups and possibly a few shorter than usual naps.

So this is what worked with us. What has worked for you?