10 wo - wean pacifier or sleep through the night first?

[huacore]

My son is 10 weeks old. We're trying to get him to sleep through the night. He currently goes to bed around 7pm, stirs around 11:30pm (I reinsert his pacifier and pat him to settle back to deeper sleep), nurses at 1am and 5am, then wakes up at 8am. We have him on an EASY schedule during the day and he takes 3 naps, each between 1 hr - 2.5 hrs. Ideally, we would get rid of the 11:30pm stirring and 1am feeding.

With the pacifier, he can fall asleep by himself in the crib day and night. But he can't do it without the pacifier. He also needs to be swaddled. He hasn't quite discovered his hands yet - he will suck on his fist occasionally and then get frustrated.

Sometimes when the pacifier falls out after he falls asleep, he's in deep enough sleep and doesn't wake up. Other times he starts bawling until he chokes unless we put the pacifier back in. It's definitely a prop. He started using it in the NICU.

My question is, should we work on getting him to sleep through the night first or wean the pacifier first? The two issues seem connected. Tracy recommended using pacifier to help wean from night feedings. But I'm afraid that'll make weaning the pacifier more difficult in the future. Also, he wouldn't truly be sleeping through the night as long as we have to be on alert about the pacifier falling out. But at the same time, I don't know if he's capable of self soothing without a pacifier at this age and would trying to wean him from it disrupt his sleep even more?

Sorry for the rambling post. This really has me stumped! Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[Buntybear]

Sorry not sure on the pacifier but could you dream feed at 11.30 which should hopefully get rid of the 1am feed?

[Lindsay27]

I was thinking he same thing.  Honestly I would never expect a 10 week old to sleep through the night, it is still perfectly normal for him to need 2 feeds (or even more if hitting a growth spurt).  If he's stirring at 11:30 and BT was 7, I'd be inclined to think that's possibly a hunger waking, so as pp said I wonder if you introduce a DF if that would push out that 1am feed.  Both my kids used paci's and for us it was a life saver, and then did both learn to settle themselves to sleep, and at around 5 months they both could find it and reinsert themselves if they needed to in the night.

[huacore]

Thanks for the input! Here's an update. He's now at 12 weeks.

We weaned him from the pacifier! Yay! He can now put himself to sleep without it. Most times it takes a few minutes of crying even with shh/pat but he'll usually be asleep by 10 mins. It's not instant and smooth like it was with the pacifier but now we don't have to reinsert it every 10 mins.

The new nap issue we're dealing with is he abruptly starts bawling/screaming at 50 mins into his nap. He's still asleep but just starts crying like someone is killing him. It's like a bad nightmare at the same time every nap. We have to pick him up right away or else it escalates. Even if we manage to get him to calm down with shh/pat and pu/pd, he'll cry every 10 mins after that. Only way to extend his nap is to preemptively pick him up by 40 mins and hold him until at least 1hr 15mins. Wake to sleep with shh/patting starting at 30mins doesn't work. I'm hoping this is just an extreme case of the sleep cycle issue and will work itself out. I don't think he's overtired because he's only awake for 1 hour between naps - barely enough time for nursing, diaper change, and little bit of play time. Anyone has experience with this?

As for night wakings, I've been trying the dream feed at 10:45pm the past week. First 2 days, it got rid of the midnight feed and he still woke up at 2am and 5am. Third and fourth nights he slept until 4am and 3:30am and then woke up at 7am! That's great IMO. But last night it was pretty bad - woke up at 1:30am, then again at 2:30am and stayed up until 4:30am. I'll try again for a couple more nights and see what happens. It's exhausting how it constantly changes. Always a moving target I guess!

[Buntybear]

Hello, I wonder if he is in a wonder week and that is why he is having those odd naps? Not idea I now but at least you are able to lengthen the naps. How is he now?

[Jbt312]

I am having the same issue. My dsughter is 11 weeks and is dependent on her pacifier. Her naps are only 20-40 minutes long because once her pacifier comes out she wakes up. I pop it back in and she usually is able to fall back asleep but wakes again once it falls out. At night, she wakes up around 1-3 and I give her the pacifier. But once again, once it falls out (anywhere from 30-60mins) she wakes up. I end up doing a pacifier dance all night.

At nap time, when she wakes up should I be doing the shh pat along with putting the pacifier back in?
I tried to just do the shh pat one time when she woke up but it did not work. After 30 minutes I gave up and put her pacifier back in and she fell back asleep.

Should I wait another week before weaning the pacifier?

huacore - how did you wean your son from the pacifier?

[huacore]

Here's the latest update. Baby is now 16 weeks old.

He falls asleep on his own just fine now, most of the time without any crying. But during naps, he still starts screaming at 45-50 minutes. Sometimes we can console him with patting and he goes back to sleep. Other times, he's hysterical and we need to pick him up to snap him out of it and then he won't go back to sleep. If he can get him over the hump, he will sleep for 1.5-2 hours. And if the nap is disrupted, he's tired and cranky during his awake time. It's really stressful, I think more for us than for him. His cry is so panicked and painful to listen to. It's not the normal hungry or tired cry. We've tried everything to prevent the crying but the only thing that works is if I picked him up in his sleep at 25 mins and hold him until after an hour - not sustainable.

He's such a happy baby when he's well-rested and awake.  We can't get anything done when he's napping because one of us always has to be in the nursery with him, incase he starts screaming. He's getting 16-17 hours of sleep a day and is only awake 1-1.5 hours between naps so I don't think he's overtired.

At night, he goes to bed around 7pm. I dream feed him around 10:45pm and he wakes up to feed at 2am and 5am and wakes up around 7am. He doesn't usually do the crying thing at night. Only naps.

Jbt312 - we pretty much weaned him from the pacifier cold turkey. There was some crying when he was trying to fall asleep without it, we didn't give in and did a lot of shh/pat and pu/pd instead. It's tough but after 3 days, he was able to put himself to sleep. He also learned to suck his fingers the last couple of weeks, which is helpful. Good luck! I don't think it's too early to wean your daughter from it.