The Pacifier Dance

I would imagine every mom who has ever used a pacifier to calm a nervous baby, knows exactly what I am referring to.

It's the constant up and down, eagle like watching of the in and out motion of the pacifier in the mouth, hoping beyond hope that it will stay in long enough to let the little one drift themselves into deep enough sleep that they will not notice when it does inevitably fall out. It's the nervous ready to pounce feeling as I await that first little screech signifying the pacifier has indeed left the mouth too early.

No one tells you about the pacifier dance even though I'm sure they know you will be doing the dance for the next however many months of your life. I spend probably two hours a day doing the dance. It's not bad at night, it's during the day when she needs to go to sleep that the dance occurs.

One thing I've learned about pacifiers is that they can be life savers and definitely help her to self soothe, but I've also learned they are a major pain in the rear! I am tempted to encourage the hand/thumb since she seems to find that on her own and it sure seems like it would be nice to have her automatically go to the hand, but I'm sure that's a harder habit to break long term, and someone would argue it will interfere with something. I just really don't care about habits or long term effects from harmless things that we all did as children. Perhaps I am harboring some deep issues considering I slept with my owl bottle until I was..? I don't even know - my parents would have to fill you in on that drama.

Well, that's all for today. She has finally fallen asleep I am done with the dance for right now, so that means getting to work.

If anyone even reads this little blog of mine (I know you do, Kim!), feel free to comment! I love knowing that people are reading it, even though I've done these blogs for years without sharing them, it's still nice thinking people are out there keeping up with the Jones'...err... Delantys.