Using Nursing as Pacifier

[Anonymous]

I hope some one gives you some advice or tips here because this is the exact post I was going to make. Brielle is 6 months old and is doing the same thing with me. The longest she has ever slept is 6 hours but now its every 30 minutes to an hour all night long waking up and literally she chases me around the bed trying to nurse.

Everyone keeps telling me to put her in her own room and crib and let her CIO but I cant make myself do that 🙁

lifeuntome2007-4-1 23:47:42

[Anonymous]

lifeuntome,

No, I won’t do CIO either, especially when he may be hurting due to reflux. We’ve scheduled an appt with a pediatric GI, so we’ll see what he/she can do about our sleep issues (hopefully prescribe something to help).

I’ll let you know if we find something that works 🙂

[Anonymous]

I’ve known moms with non-reflux babies who wanted to use mom as a pacifier. Even when they are not hungry they find sucking very comforting, and being close to mommy is comforting too. Hopefully when both of your little ones are more comfortable this comfort nursing will decrease.

[Anonymous]

Christine,

I have too, and I think that’s the reason I was kind of concerned…I didn’t want to form a habit that would be hard to break later. However, I’ve decided that until his reflux is under control or outgrown, I will just continue what I’m doing, because it seems to soothe him at night.

Also, I scheduled a GI appointment this morning, so maybe we’ll get some new ideas with that.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I think that’s what I would do too. When the time is right you’ll be able to break the habit, but for now it seems that’s what he needs. Nothing is easy or straight forward with a reflux baby. I hope the gi gives you some good answers and solutions.

[Anonymous]

This sound familiar. Reidun, who is almost 9 months old, is waking twice in the night. She will not sleep alone in her crib, and must be cuddled up to a warm body all night long. If we don’t do this, she will wake up, and refuse to go back to sleep. My husband and I are now taking turns sleeping with her in our bed, the other sleeps in the guest room. When he has her, he brings her to me (in the guest room) to feed during the night, and then takes her back to our bed. The reason we are now taking turns, is that she tries to use me as a pacifier and BF all night long. When she is next to Daddy she can’t do this, so this habit has improved. Plus, she wakes early, so the person in the guest room can always get a couple hours more sleep. I love cuddling with her, but I really need and love my sleep too!

[Anonymous]

Justice did the same thing. He was sleeping 6 to 8 hour stretches and then all of a sudden started waking every 15 to 30 mins for weeks. At first I didn’t bring him to bed with me and nurse him to sleep because I couldn’t do it comfortably. I have back issues and it hurt to try and lay on my side and nurse him. I eventually learned to lay on my back and prop him up on my arm and a pillow. All that to say, I don’t think you have done anything wrong. I think it is very natural for a baby to want to suckle on you all night. I think it is possibly the way God intended it to be. There are the hormones that relax both mom and baby. All that being said. Justice started waking every hour to two hours even while nursing. It started driving me crazy so, I did do some sleep training with him. You could probably try some sleep training with him, but decide how often you will allow him to nurse at night. With the sleep traing I did I stayed in the room with Justice. Every time he got up I put him back down and said night night. once he would lay still for me I would rub his lower back in a circular motion. There is more to it than all that, but I just wanted you to see that I did my best to do it without him crying. He would cry though and still does because he is mad at me for not giving him what he wants. At nights now he doesn’t cry at all. I feed him until he slows down nursing and I know he’s good and drowsy and I just lay him down and he goes right to sleep. It only took a week for him to not wake at all at night or to only wake once. I don’t know how likely it would be for a baby Caden’s age to do that, but you could always try it I guess. If it is something you would like to try you could pm me and I could tell you how to do it. Justice was not an easy case. You could check my posts about his sleeping and see it was a tough road, but things are so much better now. Oh, I should also say that come to find out Justice was getting most of his calories at night. That may be why he woke so frequently. He would eat a little and fall asleep and get hungry again and wake again and so on. Also, I think he was uncomfortable.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the input!

Brielles ped said to let her CIO but never for more than an hour. that if she doesnt stop crying at that point, she probably wont. I tried it and it broke my heart so I gave up. Plus all I could think about was “she has to be in pain from reflux and Im torturing her”

[Anonymous]

lifeuntome wrote:

Thanks for all the input!

Brielles ped said to let her CIO but never for more than an hour. that if she doesnt stop crying at that point, she probably wont. I tried it and it broke my heart so I gave up. Plus all I could think about was “she has to be in pain from reflux and Im torturing her”

that is HORRIBLE that your ped would say that. how can you allow a reflux baby that isnt properly medicated to cry it out? that is CRUEL. i had acid reflux in my 3 tri. of pregnancy, and it LITERALLY made me cry at night. i cannot believe your ped would tell you to do that.

[Anonymous]

I dont think peds are educated enough about reflux.

[Anonymous]

I know mine isn’t educated enough for sure! I think I know more about it than he does (with my limited knowledge). This is especially surprising seeing how common infant reflux is these days…

Also, in my opinion, CIO for an hour would be cruel whether they had reflux or not…that is an awfully long time for an infant to cry. I even had trouble with 10 minutes when we did CIO with our oldest son, but he NEVER cried more than 10.

Can you imagine an hour of crying in yourself??? That would be pretty extreme. I would think that would produce all kinds of negative reactions in a baby, including the possibility that he would eventually learn to “turn off” his cry just like institutionalized children since no one is answering him.

That said, though, I know my ped is a proponent of CIO too, but that is something we disagree on, so I choose not to do it.

One thing we have to remember is that the peds may be experts in medicine, but only a mother is an expert in her own baby and her intuition will tell her what is right for her baby. I wish I had listened to my intuition more with my first son. I know I would have done a lot of things differently.

You sound like a very sensitive mom, and you did the rigth thing (in my opinion) not letting her cry that long, especially as young as she is. I hope you find something to help her and you soon!

[Anonymous]

one more thing I thought of…

I don’t know how you feel about Dr. Sears or whether you know him or his beliefs, but he believes that “high need” babies won’t respond to CIO well anyway, because their personalities are different from the average baby. A high need baby will continue crying and escalating their cries louder and louder until someone responds, so CIO wouldn’t work as well with them anyway.

I don’t know if your baby is high need, but just from your description I’m thinking maybe she is? I know Caden is! I have found that the more gentle and patient I am, the calmer he is. If I respond to him as quickly as possible, it’s much easier to calm him down.

Sleeping with him and letting him nurse may be tiring for me (and it surely is!) but he doesn’t really ever fully wake crying or anything, he may fuss a bit but then once he’s nursing he settles down very quickly and goes right back to sleep. So, it’s probably the best thing for him right now, at least until he either outgrows his reflux or it’s under control.

Have a great day

[Anonymous]

Hailey is definitely high needs! She would just cry forever until she puked all over us!

[Anonymous]

Brielle is still nursing me to death. No change. It may even be worse or Im so tired and in pain from laying on my sides all night, that it seems worse.

She is deffinately a high needs baby and even CIO only makes things worse.

Im at a total loss and here in the last couple of weeks have recieved some devastating news in reguards to my own health. This makes the situation even more dire for us because it may mean i have to stop BF very shortly. Maybe as soon as in the next couple of days.

How do I get a baby who can only sleep by breastfeeding and sleeping right up under me to understand that she can no longer do it anymore?

[Anonymous]

Oh no, are you ok? I will pray for you that whatever you are going through will be resolved soon.

About your other question: Try (as hard as it will be) not to worry too much about your daughter adjusting to bottle feeding. I know that seems impossible right now given her nursing all night routine, but she can/will get used to something new…it will be hard at first most likely, but before long a new routine will form for her, and she’ll be ok.

Many babies LOVE to nurse and find comfort in it, but for whatever reason they have to be weaned to a bottle, and they turn out just fine The only suggestion I can give is to have someone other than you feed her (you may even have to leave the house) so that she won’t fight it as much.

I hope everything works out for you. Please keep us posted.

[Author]

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