Eleanor and I have been playing a little game. During most of the day, when either girl wakes up, we’ll check her diaper, feed her, burp her, and hold her a while until she looks sleepy enough to fall asleep. Twice a day, between 11:00 and 2:00 and again between about 5:00 and 9:00, they’ll refuse to sleep. With Eleanor, we’ll give her a pacifier and she’ll seem content. That is, until she spits it out one minute later. Then she starts some fast, panicked breathing followed shortly afterwards by a cry. If I don’t put the pacifier back in her mouth, she really starts crying. So, I’ll pick up her pacifier, put it back in her mouth, and hold it there with a finger so that it doesn’t pop out again right away. She settles down, closes her eyes and starts a rhythmic sucking. Five sucks, some quiet breathing, five more sucks. Then, when it looks safe, I’ll leave her side and try to eat lunch or dinner. A minute later, she’ll spit it out and start crying again. We’ll do this for hours until it’s time for her to eat again.
I’ve tried staying by her side to see what’s going on. Sometimes, she moves her hand next to her cheek and with a sudden motion fling the pacifier out of her mouth. Other times, she’ll get tired, yawn, and the pacifier falls out. The most confusing one is where she’s happily sucking away and then she’ll spontaneously just spit it right out.
The solution would seem to be to just continue holding her, but then we would never eat since this only seems to happen during lunch and dinner. We’ve tried letting her cry for a bit to see if she’ll stop, but she doesn’t. She just cries and cries until she’s worked up a good sweat and her hair is all matted. We would try trading off with holding her, but as often as not, Miranda’s fussing during this time as well.
We may have found our best compromise yesterday evening. Agnes and I were eating dinner and we each had one girl at our feet in their carseats. We would stick the pacifier in their mouths, shovel food in ours, and then stop to repeat the process whenever the pacifier would come back out again. It seemed to work okay.
I read this in “The Happiest Baby on the Block” and it seemed to work a little (I wasn’t consistent enough with it I think). You put the pacifier in, and when she starts sucking, you pull it out a little bit, not enough so that you pull it out of her mouth, but enough so that she sucks harder, pulls it back into her mouth, and hangs onto it. You do this about 10 to 15 times in a row. Then you leave her alone, and she should hang onto it more and let it fall out of her mouth less. It’s like reverse psychology, you pull it out of her mouth a little so she’ll suck harder. Repeat on a prn basis.
Hope this helps! I know lots of pacifier tricks (We just got Isaac off the pacifier at 2 years)
Jessica
Dear Agnes & Bernard,
Love your blogs. I always look forward to new ones. And reading something like this: I CAN’T imagine being a new parent. And for TWO all at once? You guys are amazing with the girls.
P.S. It’s also great to read other parents agreeing with you and providing tips and tricks. It’s a total different new world over there!
hmmm… lucas never caught onto the pacifier and i’m glad he didn’t. i’ve seen my friend while driving trying to reach the second row to get her daughter’s fallen pacifier many times so the baby wouldn’t stop screaming on top of her lungs. it’s quite dangerous. i guess we just held him, rocked him, put him in the swing, and the trick the worked the best was rocked him in his carseat (he’s buckled) with our feet whenever he cried, even through his colicky period. i fondly remember many times that was how we were able to eat our meals…. actually, that pacifier looks like the ones from the hospital, not the orthodontics one. the nipple is straight which may explain why it falls out so readily. try the orthodontics ones. maybe they’ll stay in better.