u/Legitimate-Sound2414

Hi all! FTM here :) My baby is 3.5 months old and has recently started sucking her thumb a lot to self-soothe. I know hand sucking is developmentally normal at this age, but my concern is more about sleep.

During the day, she sucks her thumb aggressively while I’m rocking her to sleep for naps (she’s also been protesting naps a lot lately). She spends a lot of time sucking her hands when she’s awake and even tries to put her hand in her mouth while drinking her bottle.

At night, she doesn’t suck her thumb to fall asleep initially, but she does use it during partial night wakings to connect sleep cycles. Yesterday, she was in active sleep from about 6–7 a.m. and sucked her thumb for almost the entire hour.

We almost never used a pacifier before because she settled well without one, although I know she’ll take one if I offer it.

My concern is that thumb sucking will become a sleep association that’s hard to break. I’ve read that pacifiers are generally easier to wean than thumb sucking, so I’m wondering if I should start introducing one now instead. On the other hand, I don’t want to create a new dependency if it’s not necessary. Should I try a sleep sack with fold-over mittens?

Has anyone been through something similar? Did your baby eventually outgrow thumb sucking on their own? Did anyone introduce a pacifier for naps only, and if so, did it become something your baby needed overnight as well?
Thanks!

Hi all! FTM here :) My baby is 3.5 months old and has recently started sucking her thumb a lot to self-soothe. I know hand sucking is developmentally normal at this age, but my concern is more about sleep.

During the day, she sucks her thumb aggressively while I’m rocking her to sleep for naps (she’s also been protesting naps a lot lately). She spends a lot of time sucking her hands when she’s awake and even tries to put her hand in her mouth while drinking her bottle.

At night, she doesn’t suck her thumb to fall asleep initially, but she does use it during partial night wakings to connect sleep cycles. Yesterday, she was in active sleep from about 6–7 a.m. and sucked her thumb for almost the entire hour.

We almost never used a pacifier before because she settled well without one, although I know she’ll take one if I offer it.

My concern is that thumb sucking will become a sleep association that’s hard to break. I’ve read that pacifiers are generally easier to wean than thumb sucking, so I’m wondering if I should start introducing one now instead. On the other hand, I don’t want to create a new dependency if it’s not necessary. Should I try a sleep sack with fold-over mittens?

Has anyone been through something similar? Did your baby eventually outgrow thumb sucking on their own? Did anyone introduce a pacifier for naps only, and if so, did it become something your baby needed overnight as well?
Thanks!

Hi all! I'm looking for some advice or reassurance from parents who have gone through something similar.

Our daughter is 13 weeks old. Around 9 weeks, we started using a gentle soothing ladder for naps and bedtime instead of immediately rocking her to sleep. We started with the least amount of support possible and only escalating if she cried. We started doing this because she's always been a contact napper, and we hoped that by gradually giving less assistance, she'd eventually become more comfortable falling asleep in her crib (and hopefully connect sleep cycles once she's developmentally ready). It worked surprisingly well for about two weeks—we could usually settle her with patting or shushing instead of rocking.

Then, almost overnight when she hit 12 weeks, it felt like we lost all of that progress.

Now, the moment we lay her down to put on her sleep sack, she starts crying. If we pick her up, she calms immediately. As soon as we lean over to *try* to put her in the crib, she cries again before she's even in it. If I rock her, she protests much less and falls asleep fairly quickly, but if she's even slightly awake during the transfer, she immediately cries.

I've also noticed that her sleepy cues seem to have disappeared. The other day she happily played outside for almost two hours with no obvious sleepy signs. As soon as I realized how long she'd been awake and took her upstairs for a nap, she immediately cried—but then fell asleep very quickly in my arms. Yesterday, instead of attempting the crib right away, I stood by the window holding her, and she simply closed her eyes and drifted off on her own.

I've tried both shorter and longer wake windows, but the reaction is the same. This makes me wonder if she's not actually fighting sleep, but protesting the sleep routine (sleep sack → crib) or anticipating being put down. At this point I've pretty much abandoned the soothing ladder and gone back to rocking her to sleep because it seems much less distressing for her, but it feels like we've lost all the progress we made. Also scared that soothing ladder has accidentally made her associate the crib with stress. She can however happily lie in her crib during awake time watching her mobile and doesn't seem bothered by bedtime crib transfers while awake.

Has anyone else's baby gone through something similar around that age? Was it just a developmental phase? Did it improve on its own, or did you change anything that helped?

Thank you so much!

Hi all! I'm looking for some advice or reassurance from parents who have gone through something similar.

Our daughter is 13 weeks old. Around 9 weeks, we started using a gentle soothing ladder for naps and bedtime instead of immediately rocking her to sleep. We started with the least amount of support possible and only escalating if she cried. We started doing this because she's always been a contact napper, and we hoped that by gradually giving less assistance, she'd eventually become more comfortable falling asleep in her crib (and hopefully connect sleep cycles once she's developmentally ready). It worked surprisingly well for about two weeks—we could usually settle her with patting or shushing instead of rocking.

Then, almost overnight when she hit 12 weeks, it felt like we lost all of that progress.

Now, the moment we lay her down to put on her sleep sack, she starts crying. If we pick her up, she calms immediately. As soon as we lean over to try to put her in the crib, she cries again before she's even in it. If I rock her, she protests much less and falls asleep fairly quickly, but if she's even slightly awake during the transfer, she immediately cries.

I've also noticed that her sleepy cues seem to have disappeared. The other day she happily played outside for almost two hours with no obvious sleepy signs. As soon as I realized how long she'd been awake and took her upstairs for a nap, she immediately cried—but then fell asleep very quickly in my arms. Yesterday, instead of attempting the crib right away, I stood by the window holding her, and she simply closed her eyes and drifted off on her own.

I've tried both shorter and longer wake windows, but the reaction is the same. This makes me wonder if she's not actually fighting sleep, but protesting the sleep routine (sleep sack → crib) or anticipating being put down. At this point I've pretty much abandoned the soothing ladder and gone back to rocking her to sleep because it seems much less distressing for her, but it feels like we've lost all the progress we made. Also scared that soothing ladder has accidentally made her associate the crib with stress. She can however happily lie in her crib during awake time watching her mobile and doesn't seem bothered by bedtime crib transfers while awake.

Has anyone else's baby gone through something similar around that age? Was it just a developmental phase? Did it improve on its own, or did you change anything that helped?

Thank you so much!