Should I Remove a Pacifier After My Baby is Asleep? No, you don't have to remove your baby's pacifier after he or she is asleep. Even if the pacifier falls out while they are sleeping – which is quite common! – there is no need for you to reinsert it.
There's no need to remove your baby's pacifier while they're sleeping. In fact, doing that might wake them up, and we all know the old rule about never waking a sleeping baby. If the pacifier comes out at night and your little one is sleep sleeping soundly, don't feel like you have to put it back in.
While the pacifier is recommended for babies under six months, both the AAP and the American Academy of Family Physicians advise weaning children from it after six months of age.
Pacifiers cause eventual crooked teeth.
However, pacifier use should be limited to less than 6 hours per day. With that in mind, it's important to remember that each child's mouth and teeth develop differently.
How often should the pacifier be replaced? Check the pacifier before each use - especially when baby is teething - and throw away at the first signs of damage or weakness. However, we recommend the soother be replaced every two months for hygienic purposes.
Instead of putting the pacifier directly into their mouth, put it in their hand. The next time you go in to help them, guide their hand to where the pacifier is in the crib, and let them do the rest. DON'T tie or clip a pacifier to your baby or their crib with a rope, ribbon, or string.
If not try to use minimal soothing to settle baby back down without the pacifier. Often jiggling the crib (so baby's head jiggles lightly) or gently patting baby's back like a tom tom are good non-invasive techniques.
There are a lot of so-called 'gentle' methods of weaning the baby off the pacifier at an early age (one called 'The Pull-Out Method' involves letting the baby have the paci until he's almost asleep and then removing it from his mouth and continuing this until he is asleep.
Using a pacifier.
“Almost all babies will find some baby gas relief by sucking on a pacifier,” O'Connor says, because the sucking action releases endorphins that will soothe them.
Pacifiers, also known as dummies or soothers, are often used to calm, pacify or soothe a fussy baby. Babies love to suck for comfort and security, as well as nutrition and a pacifier provides a bottle-fed baby with a substitute to frequent comfort sucking at the mother's breast.
So, can pacifiers cause gas? While pacifiers are not the major culprits of producing gas, they are one of the minor causes. “Babies can swallow air during feeding, when using a pacifier and while crying,” Natasha Burgert, M.D., wrote in Forbes.
Consider the drawbacks: Your baby might become dependent on the pacifier. If your baby uses a pacifier to sleep, you might face middle-of-the-night crying spells when the pacifier falls out of your baby's mouth. Pacifier use might increase the risk of middle ear infections.
Cut off the tip of the pacifier or snip a hole in it so the pacifier no longer provides suction. Give your child the pacifier as usual — sucking on it won't be effective, so your child won't like it as much and will eventually stop using it.
The Mayo Clinic recommends sterilizing pacifiers for under-6-month-olds before each use, and cleaning with hot, soapy water before each use for children older than 6 months. Other experts feel less strongly about sterilizing pacifiers, but still recommend cleaning with hot, soapy water before each use.
Some babies learn to self-soothe naturally as they get older. However, in other cases, parents or caregivers try to encourage the behavior through various techniques. Many approaches exist for encouraging babies to self-soothe, ranging from the extinction method, or “cry it out” (CIO), to more gradual approaches.
Until your baby is able to replace their own pacifier at around 7-8 months old, they will need YOU to replace it for them because they are relying on the pacifier to fall asleep, so much so, that they aren't able to go back to sleep without it.
Babies like sucking on pacifiers because it reminds them of being in the womb. In fact, sucking is one of 5 womb sensations (known as the 5 S's) capable of triggering a baby's innate calming reflex.
The reason babies can't hold onto their pacifiers is simply biological. Once babies transition into a deep sleep, the muscles in their mouth relax and the pacifier falls out. This is completely normal. Pacifiers come in different shapes, sizes, and materials.
Benefits of Sleeping with a Pacifier
Pacifiers can calm babies when they are feeling fussy or anxious. They may also relieve pain and ease their crying during medical procedures. Research suggests non-nutritive sucking, such as on a pacifier, may support healthy baby sleep.
"They do interfere in the beginning with breastfeeding sometimes so that's why we don't have them in the hospital and have them for the first three to four weeks," explained Dr. Theresa Patton, with Methodist Dallas Medical Center. "Pacifiers are gone from general use.
But, let's be honest, you can only feed baby so much before soreness and exhaustion kick in, or baby is full. Not surprisingly, between 60 and 85 percent of infants are using pacifiers, according to studies. A pacifier is a rubbery nipple, usually made from silicone or latex, designed to satisfy baby's sucking impulse.
SIDS is most common at 2-4 months of age when the cardiorespiratory system of all infants is in rapid transition and therefore unstable. So, all infants in this age range are at risk for dysfunction of neurological control of breathing.