My 3mo daughter was sleeping pretty well through the night (from 11 PM to 7 AM) for about a week, and now she wakes up every 30 mins to 1 hour wanting her pacifier. I've been running in at the first sign of crying and giving her her pacifier. As of 2 days ago, the behavior started spreading to her day time routine.
We have a routine set up where she wakes up, eats (wife breastfeeds), has her "awake time", and then we put her down awake for her nap when she shows signs of being tired (lather, rinse, repeat). She normally didn't wake up more than once or twice a night or during her naps, where as now it's anywhere from 4-7 times a night and 2-3 times during a nap.
We've asked a few people what they've done and people have suggested:
- "gradual extinction" to remove pacifier dependency all together
- just deal with it till she can self soothe
- remove pacifier during day and deal with her, and then let her have it at night.
- add a midnight feeding at 2-3 AM and remove pacifier during day
This is our first child and so we are still new with this whole parenting thing. What is safe for the baby? Will the baby go through "withdrawals" if we deny her something she has grown attached too? How can we help her get better sleep during the night?