I am writing to everyone because I know this would have been helpful for me! Let me say that I was totally fine with my daughter having a pacifier until it interfered with her sleep. Ok....

I’ll start with her backstory. Our daughter was born 3 weeks early and had jaundice where she was admitted into the NICU after being home for 2 days. While we were in the NICU the only thing that kept her calm in the incubator was a pacifier. She became obsessed with her pacifier. Once we got home from the hospital, she would be up for about ten minutes and cry for it just to soothe herself. Nothing else would calm her. Of course we let her have it because we were trying to keep her comfortable. She still slept fine without it so it wasn’t an issue(at this time she was napping in her swing or in someone’s arms and sleeping in her bassinet at night).

Then it came to trying to get her to sleep/nap in her crib... we started early at 10 weeks(yes I know research shows to keep them in a bassinet up to a year but this works best for our family) we transitioned her right away at night in her crib because she was really good at sleeping at night. The first night she did amazing! Has done amazing ever since. She gets better sleep, we get better sleep, it’s perfect. Nap time was a different story... she hated napping in her crib. So we would give her the pacifier so she could soothe herself. The problem was she would cry for it as soon as it would fall out. So we were walking in every 5-10 min putting it back in 😬 so... I started to try and figure out how to help her with her naps. I started to really watch her sleep cues. (I wasn’t really doing that before, would just put her down when she got fussy) and then I started noticing she would rub her eyes or yawn or suck on her hand almost exactly an hour after she woke up from her nap. I started putting her down right at an hour after she got up. Still cried for her paci. She just didn’t know how to soothe herself. We would go in and try to rub her belly and calm her and she would go ballistic unless we gave her the paci. That’s when my husband and I decided, no more paci. So for three days nap time was awful, lots of crying(us going in every few minutes trying to soothe her and walking out to see if she could calm herself). But I kept working on catching her before she got overtired and putting her down. I also started a nap time routine. I sing to her and hold her until she gets sleepy and then I put her in her crib sleepy but not asleep. She now falls asleep great during nap time BUT she has found her thumb. At first I was upset about it because I myself was a thumb sucker for way too long 🙄 but I know that sucking is her way to soothe herself and now she doesn’t need us to come and put her paci in to go back to sleep.

So I guess I wanted to help any Mom that was struggling with the same thing we did! Work on sleep cues! Catch them before they are way over tired. Do a routine at nap time. Put them down sleepy but not asleep. And have a lot of wine while you are trying to take away the paci! Lol. Our daughter now is happier while she is awake. Loves to talk and play until she goes down for her nap. And we are not always picking a pacifier up off the ground and having to wash it off lol. Hope this helps! Stay strong mamas!