Baby can’t sleep without a pacifier

For safety reasons , it is generally advisable for babies in their first year of life to be given a pacifier to help them fall asleep in order to reduce the risk of “sudden infant death”. However, if it turns out from the sixth month of life that your child does not fall asleep without the pacifier or cannot continue sleeping after losing it during the night, then it seems to be less suitable as a sleep aid and prevents your child from sleeping through the night.

When the pacifier bothers you while you sleep

If your baby fell asleep with a pacifier from birth, it has probably gotten used to the pacifier being part of falling asleep and associates the two. He will also ask for the pacifier if he wakes up in the night and realizes that the pacifier is no longer there because he has lost it. Your child will probably not fall asleep again until you have given him the pacifier.

What helps if your baby doesn’t fall asleep or sleep through the night without a pacifier?

If you find that the pacifier is disturbing your child’s sleep, you should take action. But how can you teach your baby to fall asleep or sleep through the night without a pacifier? There are several ways to “do away with” it as a sleep aid:

• Just leave the pacifier out. Children can change their habits very quickly. With a bit of luck, the problem will be resolved after three days. Perhaps the tips in our special “How your baby learns to sleep” and the approaches presented there can help you break the habit.
• Wait for the problem to resolve itself. At around nine months, children are usually able to find their pacifier again at night on their own. It is then no longer dependent on your help.
• Hold the pacifier in your baby’s hand instead of putting it in his mouth. In this way you support your baby’s independence at an early stage. This can help the pacifier problem resolve itself more quickly because it learns to help itself early on.
• Put several pacifiers on the bed. This gives your baby a better chance of finding a replacement during the night. In the event that a pacifier falls out of the bed, this also ensures that another one is available.

If the pacifier has established itself as an unfavorable sleeping aid for your child, you have various options to counteract this. Just click on our special pacifier and find out, for example, when it’s time to completely wean your child off the pacifier.