I’ve blogged before about how my first child was/is a thumb sucker, and my second loved his pacifier, but finally kicked the habit, and now we have my third that I feel we are at a crossroads with.
You see, he hasn’t been a great sleeper because of his tummy issues. We’ve always felt the need to continue night feedings with him. Well, now he is 14 months old, and starting to eat more, and it seems that he is fine going without food all night long. Sounds great, right? Well, my problem is that he seems to be getting more and more attached to his pacifier in the process.
As a newborn, he didn’t really care for it at all. He would take it once in a while, and then promptly spit it out once he fell asleep. Yet, in the past couple of months, I’ve noticed his attachment to his blankets when he is tired, and with that, comes a stronger need to suck. We keep his paci (as we call it) in his crib and do not allow it outside of sleep time. Yet, I will see him pointing to it when he is tired, and wanting it.
One friend suggested we just take it away all together, suffer through the crying for a couple of nights and be done with it while he is young. While, I think that is a great idea, I also think he is just now adjusting to not needing a bottle all night long and wonder if that is too much to throw at him at once.
You see, while he is sleeping without being fed, this doesn’t mean he is sleeping without waking up. He is still waking up once a night. We will go in there and stick the paci in and then he is usually good the rest of the night. Are we ruining him forever?
Of course I know we aren’t ruining him forever, but I do worry that we are creating an addiction. So, I’m left to wonder, should we be happy with the longer hours of sleep now, and worry about the paci later? I think so. What do you think?