Clarification
The reason we don’t want Maddie to have a pacifier as she goes to sleep is so that she doesn’t become dependent on it. She’ll wake up in the middle of the night and cry for it, thus causing a worse night’s sleep for everyone in the house. If she’s able to self-soothe, instead, then she can go back to sleep without crying for anything.
It’s not that we’re against pacifiers. In fact, Maddie has four of them that float around the house. We’re just very judicious in their use. She doesn’t have one stuck in her mouth all day long. She only gets it when we can’t comfort her in any other fashion.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me also say that we gave her a pacifier to go to sleep tonight. It worked like a charm. No crying, no fuss. But, here it is, 15 minutes later and she’s crying again. She spit it out when she fell asleep and wants one of us to give it to her.
Why is it that every choice we make feels like a mistake? I feel like the worst mother in the world.
Filed under: uncategorized on March 14th, 2007
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Curse of the Parent. heh
You are searching for *The Answer* to being *The* Perfect Mommy and it just doesn’t exist. Every day and every night is going to be different. Even if you found the “magic” sleep tool, there will be times it doesn’t work, times when you feel like you shouldn’t have done this, or shouldn’t have done that, etc., etc.
Go with your gut. Babies are all about constant change and growth. Remember that one day she’ll be sneaking out her bedroom window to meet her boyfriend. Or hopefully not. ;-P But you get what I’m saying.
Remember to breathe and tell yourself everything is okay when she is screaming, you’re NOT doing anything “wrong”, remember everyone goes through this, remember that pacifiers and blankees and thumb-sucking all go away eventually too.
Lucy had a blankee and sucked her thumb. I didn’t do it on purpose, in fact, I tried to stop this, but later on I was glad she’d found her own way of self-comforting after all.
When she got to be around 5, I bribed her to stop, telling her she could pick whatever she wanted from the toy store up to $200 if she stopped for a month, so she did and got a gorgeous Fisher-Price complete kitchen set.
Armed with this knowledge, I shoved a pacifier in Ray’s mouth almost the second I looked at him. Heh. Kidding, but not by much. However, Ray didn’t want to use the pacifier much either, nor his thumb. He just screamed a lot. Joy.
I tried so hard to get him to take his pacifier and by god, he finally started doing it. Relief. I took it away again around 6 months, I think and it worked out. If it hadn’t, I dunno, we would have tried whatever. Something. It’s always something, you know.
You’ll get through this. Yeah, it sucks sometimes but you’ll get it through and so will she.
Smile. Relax. If she falls asleep on you sometimes, oh well. If you make her sleep on her own and do he screaming thing to get her on a schedule, oh well too. It all washes out in the end.
What’s important is that she knows she is surrounded with unconditional love from you, her daddy and her extended family. And she feels that all the time. Like a vibration all through her, no matter what dramas she might be going through.
That’s what’s important. Just that.
You’re not a “bad mom”, stop beating yourself up. I SAID SO!
Oh and I didn’t email anyone about blogging again; I’m not even really sure I’m blogging again, anyway, lol! ;-P If I HAD emailed anyone, of course I would have told you too, silly!
{{{Big Hugs}}}
You’re fine. Maddie’s fine too. *Really*.
I totally know that feeling! That “everything I do is the wrong choice” feeling. Ug. It’s always strongest for me when there are sleep issues happening. Sometimes it’s that there ISN’T any choice that would work.
Amber pretty much said EVERYTHING I wanted to say! Good job Amber!
Hey, sometimes the pacifire works and sometimes it doesn’t.
You are doing the best you can, that’s all anyone can ask of you, especially Maddie.
Don’t beat yourself up, child rearing is a lot of trial and error. How do you think I’ve survived this long???
BIG HUGS!
grace
You’ll be alright Erica, I know it’s hard but you and Gerald will survive.
We used vibrating bouncing seats for a long while, our boys would NOT sleep in their own cribs or in one. Then we propped up their crib mattresses with a small pillow once they weaned off the vibrating seats (those are so great!), and they seem to be sleeping good now. Try a small pillow, and hey if that doesn’t work you can always get earplugs! LOL