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Friday, April 30, 2010

The Soothie is not always Soothing...

Let me tell you a little bit about my love/hate relationship with the Soothie. There are times when it is a life saver of my sanity and times when it toys with my sanity. My children like to play what we call The Pacifier Game (yes a very clever name I know). This basically consists of my children, primarily my daughter, crying for her soothie, one of us giving it to them, them waiting until we sit back down (or until our heads hit the pillow at night), spitting out their soothie, screaming for their soothie, repeat. I'm pretty sure none of us are really big fans of the Pacifier Game, but for some reason, they feel the need to play.

So I know you're probably saying, why don't you just stop giving them the pacifier then? Well, we've also found times when the pacifier is wonderful and actually owns up to it's namesake. My daughter has a bit of reflux and tends to get very worked up after her bottles. She gets so worked up that she ends up spitting up a lot of her bottle. The ONLY thing that settles her and reduces the amount of spit (because it's never fully stopped) is the soothie. There are also times when they are having trouble falling asleep and the soothie really just helps them get there.

So where do you draw the line and how do you do it? Do you stop cold turkey? Do you only give it to them after the bottle to settle their tummies? Do you only give it at night and eventually fade it out? I'd really like to hear what people did since taping it to my children's faces to keep them from spitting it out is not an option...right? ( I kid, I kid)

3 comments:

Christina said...

Mine just turned 2, and I am not giving it up for a bit. They only get it at naps and bedtime for now, and sometimes during the day when they are sick or something. Or stressful days, like a trip to the doctor, things like that. We've never had a problem with it, expect for when they started doing what yours are doing. So we bought clips that clip to their shirt, and hook on to the paci. They couldn't get the clips off, so the throwing stopped. :)
Now, they don't need to clip on them, but we still use it. Sometimes we wake them up and its off of them, but they don't do the "throw the paci" game anymore, because they don't hardly every get them...gosh, rambling much am I? ;)

Melissa Ann said...

Lots of people swear by the WubNubs (I think they're called). It a stuffed animal attached to a Soothie. They say since they are bigger they're not so easily spit out because it can't go far with that animal attached.

We didn't give a paci until about 3 weeks and then only out of desperation for sleep. ;) One of my girls never really cared for it and the other girl liked it pretty well. She played the Pacifier game. We never used the Soothie but instead used the MAM. I think the curved part over the mouth and the nipple shape really helped them keep it in.

By about 3 months, I was sick of keeping track of the Pacis. Aeralind still hated them and Bronwyn was still liking it. I just quit offering it to Aeralind and let her cry a little. And gradually took it away first at naps and then at bedtime. By 4 months both of them had found their thumbs and I haven't had a problem since. Until ofcourse I have to break them of the thumbsucking habit.

I would just give it for the bottle if that is really helping. Eventually they sleep with or without it, but if you think it helps give it at night. You're still in that "I'll do anything at all to get sleep" stage and probably will be for a few more weeks :) Hang on! It gets sooo much better!

Gretchen said...

Thanks for all the tips and encouragement. I'm glad mine aren't the only ones who play that game. I'm going to have to look into the WubNub and maybe try that.

I did notice that today my daughter spit out the soothie and the started sucking her hand for about 3 seconds. It's progress right?