Pacifier/Soother Love

Elsa right after she started sucking on a pacifier for the first time - she's so cute!

I was really torn about whether to use a pacifier with Elsa or not.  On the one hand, it's said to reduce the chances of SIDS, which is a HUGE positive!  And also the Baby Whisperer said it's really good cause it teaches them how to self-soothe.  On the other hand, people say it can affect the way their teeth come in, it may cause nipple confusion, and more importantly I worried that she may get attached to it (or I may) and that could somehow affect other things - like her being verbal abilities or activity level or something.  I really hadn't looked a ton into it though, such as reading what all the various experts said, so I still didn't feel super strong either way.  BUT, because of the SIDS thing, I figured I would start introducing it somewhere between 1 and 2 months.

From my last post, you know that we started using it on her 1 month birthday.  I've been experimenting with it a little since then - in when to use it and in trying to help Elsa learn to fall asleep by using it.  It's often really hard for Elsa to fall asleep - she just won't or can't do it, so she stays awake and gets overly tired and then super fussy and anxious and unhappy with everything, and it ends up being a two-hour process (especially in the evenings), with the last hour at least with a super fussy baby.  So I'm trying to recognize her signs of getting tired, and then trying to get her calm and soothed and happy so she can let herself fall asleep.

I've had luck a couple times during the day - I'll play with her for awhile and then I see one yawn, and then two yawns, and then I lay her down and hold her, cover her with a blanket, and put the pacifier in.  I also did it once with her in her bouncer.  It worked two or three times, well it still took her over half an hour to fall asleep, but she was calm the whole time and relaxed and eventually it worked.  Last night/this morning she was awake from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and the pacifier didn't seem to help at all with her falling asleep faster, although she was super calm and relaxed the whole time instead of fussy.  And tonight she started getting fussy and tired at a little before 8 p.m., and usually (based especially on the previous two nights) we'd be in for a lot of crying and fussing for the next two hours until she could get herself to sleep, but tonight she was pretty calm - it still took her until 10 p.m. to fall asleep, but there was minimal crying and lots of a relaxed little Elsa just being awake.

Sooooo, I'm liking it so far!  It's at least very useful in helping to relax her, and that's a pretty fabulous thing when you have a fussy baby!!!  But I don't want to overuse it, and I certainly don't want to be shoving it into her little mouth too often, but to relax her when she's being fussy is very good.  And I hope it will also start to help in getting her to fall asleep - I need to work on figuring that out more.  So I'm a happy mommy right now and also feel like I'm making some good headway on figuring out how my little girl works, and how to help her at least relax, if not fall asleep yet.  And yet I'm still going to be paying close attention to only giving it to her when we need to, or to relax her so she doesn't spiral downward when she's tired, but I want to also make sure she's getting good stimulation and play during her awake times (and before she starts getting tired) - I just hope I can help her learn to fall asleep more quickly cause otherwise I so far see the pacifier as the only way to go there, otherwise she so quickly gets so super upset.  Anyway though, it's a good start and I'm very happy that I can help her soothe herself now and get relaxed, I think it's a very good thing for her emotional development!  :)

Now here are a few more photos, some from awhile go - I'm catching up!  :)

November 2 (Elsa 1 1/2 weeks old) - Daddy cuddling our little sweetie, in her little baby ball which I love!  :)

November 11 (3 weeks old) - little Elsa sleeping in her car seat, and a tiny smile-look on her face!

Little crying face!

November 11 (3 weeks old) - Daddy and Elsa

November 12 (3 weeks old) - sleeping on the pillow after some skin-to-skin time with Mommy

November 17 (almost 4 weeks) - sleeping in her little swing

November 17 (almost 4 weeks) - dancing with Daddy (I have some SUPER CUTE video of this!) - and please forgive the awful-looking mattress standing up there, we need to move that so the photos can be good there!

November 17 (almost 4 weeks) - closeup of Elsa staring at the big computer screen while Daddy makes her dance!  :)

November 19 (4 weeks) - mommy and Elsa self-portrait.  Elsa wasn't too into it but so far it's my only self-portrait I've done, and I have basically no other good photos of the two of us together so I love this!