So I lied when I said I didn't want to make myself crazy trying to stop Dexter from waking up all night long. I tried a couple things - #1 NO MORE PACIFIER, #2 switching the time he eats his rice cereal and fruit to the late evening and #3 establishing a "transitional object", his blanky. The pacifier has driven me crazy lately. He has used it to go to sleep so much that he can't go to sleep without it. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he can't put himself back to sleep because he so strongly depends on sucking himself to oblivion. I got tired of getting up just to put the pacifier back in his mouth. It was just getting ridiculous, so something had to change.
I picked up a book I bought just after he was born called "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. I scoffed at it when Dex was 2 months old sleeping soundly every night. I wondered what the "sleep" issue everyone had was. Now, I laugh at myself for being naive enough to think that Dexter somehow skipped that issue. I can't do the "cry it out" method. I've tried to a couple times and just felt awful about it. It didn't do anything, but upset him even more. Not once did he go to sleep after screaming without a whole lot of hugs, kisses and apologies from mom. Frustration makes me do odd things when I'm sleep deprived, so that's why I decided to see what lessons I could learn from this famous book.
It gave great advice on how to break Dexter from the pacifier. I call this "pacifier pulling" and it's a bit like a game to get him to go to sleep. Basically, it just involves a WHOLE lot of patience. I gave him the pacifier and then, once the sucking started to slow down, I took it out. If he fussed, I waited a little bit to see whether he was just protesting or whether he was waking up. If he was waking up fussing, then I'd give it back to him and repeat it all over again. Eventually he gave a little protest cry and then went to sleep. It took 45 minutes of standing by his crib Friday night to get him to go to sleep. I did this for all his night wakings. I made sure to go to bed early that night, so I wouldn't get frustrated and give up. The worst was at 5:30 am when he just did not want to go back to sleep, and I had to repeat the 45 minute stint. Eventually we all went back to sleep, but by then, I wanted my own pacifier and fuzzy blanket!
The next day, Saturday, I didn't give him the pacifier for any of his naps. He pretty much was in his stroller or in the car for all his nap times, so that wasn't too bad. That night, I didn't give him the pacifier at all to go to sleep. Instead I wrapped him in his blanky and read him 5 books. Then I turned out all the lights and stood by him in his crib as he moved all over the place, kicking off his blanket and making tons of noise playing. I stood by him until he finally got tired and stated to fuss. I put my hand on his chest until he finally went to sleep after another 45 minutes of standing in the dark! He skipped his 11 pm waking though so I knew something was working.
Sunday, I gave in on the pacifier during brunch with friends at a restaurant. He was really upset, so I gave him the pacifier and took him for a short walk in the stroller so he could go to sleep and let us eat in peace. That was the only time and as soon as he was asleep - the pacifier got put away. The other naps he didn't use it and that night was awesome - he didn't even fuss! He went to sleep so quietly that I didn't even know he went to sleep AND after only 20 minutes of me standing next to him. He slept 5.5 hours for his long stretch! That's 2 hours longer than usual.
Monday night - no fussing at all when I laid him down. I left immediately and he still didn't make any noise. I just put his blanky on him and he rolled over on his side to sleep. We accidentally woke him up at 11:30pm getting our pajamas and getting ready for bed and he started screaming, so I had to give him the pacifier again and pull it before he went to sleep.
This is all mid-teething too. I have been giving him Tylenol again because he's been in pain. They are definitely coming in (well at least one is)! He's drooling, cranky beyond consolation sometimes, and I gently pushed on his gum and he winced and pulled back. I'm a little sore from nursing too which happened last time. I'm so not looking forward to being sore for a couple weeks again. I'm especially not looking forward to him trying out his new choppers on me either. The teeth coming in are his upper middle teeth to match his bottom lower two. He'll look like he has little rat teeth - it's gonna be so awesome! I can't wait to see that grin!
