Weaning 1yo off pacifier

Our almost-one-year-old daughter wakes up about 3-4 times a night because her pacifier has fallen out and she can't find it to put it back in. She almost always falls right back asleep after we put it in.

We are ready for her to sleep through the night, and so we want to wean her off her pacifier. But we have no idea how to! She had a cold for a few days and couldn't keep her pacifier in because of her stuffed nose -- needless to say neither she nor we got any sleep.

She has become completely dependent on the pacifier. I am also worried about the effects of her sucking on plastic all through the night, every night. Does anyone have advice about how to wean her off her binky, how long it takes, tips, etc? Thanks! Sleepless in the East Bay

Limiting pacifier use with 14 month old

Our 14 month old daughter has recently become really attached to her pacy. She searches for extra ones under the crib in the morning, calls out ''pac,'' etc. I've read the posts about eliminating the pacifier, and they're really helpful. They made us relax about the fact that our daughter needs this comfort, and realize she will probably give it up when she's ready, even if that's age 3.5 or so.

But we'd like to limit its use to naps, bedtime, and car, because we really don't want it to inhibit her speech, harm her teeth, or become her only means of comfort. None of the posts refer specifically to how to limit its use. Did you place it in a special box out of reach, only to be brought down at naptime? Or did that put too much emphasis on it? We don't necessarily want to use it in the car, but we also don't want her screeching while we try to drive. I'd love any specifics on how you made clear that it's only for use at certain times. Thanks! anon

Don't listen to what other people say if they hassle you about his still needing it; our guy's pacifier has been a great comfort to him and he is a happy, social, intelligent toddler. Why is it that at such a very young age babies have to ''toughen up'' and get rid of something so basic and comforting? I think that your guy's use of it will really change after he is done teething, they use it alot to make their poor gums feel better. I also think it is much easier to finally stop relying on the pacifier v. the thumb- my same-age nephew sucks his thumb so much that he has deformed the joint of his thumb and unlike Boo, his parents can't control its use (they also won't be able to throw it away when the time comes...) Not ready yet to boot the Boo

Weaning 16-month-old from pacifier

Since birth, my 16 month old son used a pacifier when he went to sleep. Lately he's been wanting to use it during the day and gets very cranky if I don't give in. We'd like to begin weaning him from using it during the day and eventually for sleeping. Any suggestions? Or is the 'cold turkey' method the only sure way to transition him? Thank you, kelle

Decided paci (baba) would only be for sleeping and would stay in crib (with exception of on long airplane flight to go to sleep). He was still using the small size, so I made a big deal of getting the bigger ones and saying he was ready for big boy babas. Big boy babas are only for sleeping and they stay in the crib. We collected all his ''baby babas'' and threw them away. He did this very ceremoniously and seemed very proud. Then the rough part set in when he wanted it and couldn't have it during the day. It took about three days of crying and being pretty upset, but then he was completely fine and would take it out himself and drop it in his crib when it was time to get up. I did this over the weekend so our child care provider would not get the brunt of it. He still uses it for sleeping and we're not worrying about that yet (he's 2.5 now). Three days of fussing was also how long it took when we switched him from a bottle to a sippy cup. Good luck! anon

PLEASE don't worry about it. Parenting is hard enough! If it helps make your child calm and happy, that's EXCELLENT. Some folks desperately wish their child WOULD use a pacifier.

My daughter is now 4 & STILL loves her pacifier. But she now only uses it when she goes to sleep at night or on long car trips. She's doing just fine in preschool, has lots of friends, etc. & never uses her pacifier out in public. Her teachers, dentist and pediatrician all consider her to be healthy & normal.

Our pediatrician told us that if a child needs to suck on something, the pacifier is way better than thumbsucking because thumbsucking really does damage teeth & pacifiers don't.

My daughter's pediatrician & preschool teacher have also pointed out that you almost never see a kindergartner or elementary school-aged child with a pacifier. Which in my experience appears to be true. I guess kids do outgrow their pacifiers eventually.

Although (from personal experience), I do not advise going through the utter trauma and misery required for getting your child to give up the pacifier before she is ready to do so (ugh, we went through that ... it lasted for two days before we reconsidered out of desperation), you CAN limit its use and definitely should do so if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

You can tell your daughter that pacifiers are for bedtime, naptime, and the car (or whatever limitations work for your family) and that she cannot take it to the park, the store, daycare, preschool, etc. Tell her that she's a big girl now and that big girls only use pacifiers at home or not at all.

You can also take pictures of her and tell her how pretty she looks without that thing in her mouth and show pictures of her with and without it.

But with that all said, she'll give up her pacifier when she's ready & there's no need to force her to give it up before she's ready unless it's really important to you for some reason. She'll be fine regardless of when she gives it up & we parents do need to conserve energy & choose our battles. Take care, Lisa

My 16 month-old can't go to sleep without her pacifier. She uses for naps and at night time, and with it, falls to sleep very quickly and easily. Although we don't consider her pacifier use a problem now, i wonder how and when she might give it up. Obviously we don't want her to use it as a sleep aid all of her life. She mostly sleeps through the night. Maybe one or or two nights per week i'll hear her crying and i'll go into her room and help her find her pacifier. I have no idea whether she's crying due to the lost pacifier or for some other reason.

Does anyone know what might be in store for us (in terms of pacifier use) in the future? Should we allow her to continue to use the pacifier or should we attempt to wean her of it now?

Helping 2-year-old part with pacifier

Our pediatrician has advised us to have our son wean himself from his binky when he turns two. There is some advice in the archives about this but the advice is pretty old. Any new/different suggestions about how to make this as easy a transition as possible? Thanks! No more binks!

Then, one night, as we were readinf stories, my daughter asked for her binky and I pretended not to hear her. She asked again, and I just kept on reading, ignoring her request. After several book, I put her down to sleep, as usual, and miraculously, she fell asleep. The first night she woke a few times, but it was nothing major. She was not inconsolable. The light crying kept up for maybe three nights, but by that time, we were DONE with the binks. I was so happy. She stopped mentioning it entirely within a week. It was not as bad as I thought. Mom of a binky lover

They had a pretty little lavendar bag with ribbons and the child eagerly helped collect all her binkies and put them into the bag. When they were ready to hang the bag on a tree branch in the yard, the child agreed with absolutely no fuss to take the last binky from her mouth and put it in the bag. The next morning they brought her out to the tree and she saw that the bag was gone and the binky fairy had left her a special present. She looked truly amazed and ecstatic. Maybe they edited out some difficult moments, but it seemed to all go remarkably smoothly and she was completely weaned overnight. It seems too easy--but probably worth a try! Good luck! Tracy

Then at Christmas time he said he wanted to send his pacifiers to Santa along with with his letter. We explained that some new little babies needed them for Christmas. And that since he is a big boy with a big boy bed he doesn't need them. I held out a large manila folder for him and he placed them all in the folder. He watched me address it to the North Pole and we put it out for the mailman to take.

I snuck it into the garbage can when he taking his nap. I did keep one of his favorite pacifiers for his baby keepsake box and in case of an extreme meltdown. But we never did need to get it out. He would ask for it on nights when he was having a hard time going to sleep. I just reminded him that we sent them to Santa and he was ok with it. Good Luck! natalie

Weaning a 2.5-y-o from pacifier without distress

I have a 2.5 year old who has been a pacifier lover her whole life. She is only allowed to have them (one in hand, one in mouth) in her crib, so relies on them at night, at nap time, and during the sometimes frequent crib breaks she requests during the day. (Her own version of giving herself a non-disciplinary time-out.) I have read all the archives about weaning a toddler from the pacifier, think the binky fairy is a fabulous idea, have begun to discuss it with my toddler (who instantly came up with the idea that she will give her binkys to the fairies at Fairyland ''some day, not yet''), yet I am really nervous about taking them away from her. We prefer not to have our child dependent on pacifiers for comfort when she is an older toddler (say 3.5 years old). Is she likely to give them up before then on her own or are we going to go through this weaning process no matter what? Is there any way to wean her with as little distress as possible and reduce the chances that she will switch to her thumb? Should we expect her nap time and night sleep times to permanently shorten? I am an oral person (love gum chewing, candy sucking, etc.), so I know where she gets this and don't want to remove her comfort too early. ready to be rid of binky

In my experience, yes, that is a concern.

My son is 4. We tried to take his binky away about a year ago at the suggestion of his dentist, but he went right for his thumb, and you know you can't take the thumb away! The dentist doesn't like the idea of the binky but the thumb is worse.

So now, at 4, he still uses the binky to go to sleep. As a compromise solution, his dentist suggested we pluck it out of his mouth after he's asleep. We do this and, although the first few nights he woke up looking for it, he now usually manages to sleep all night without it.

We reason that it's only for about an hour (or less) a day, whereas the thumb could be an all-day every day affair. Because he knows the binky is for bedtime only, he kind of looks forward to going to bed, which is a bonus!

FWIW, I think for my son the binky is more of a security object, or a ''lovey,'' than it is an oral device. He does manage to fall asleep for naptime at preschool without it - I think peer pressure helps there. The absolute panic he goes through when we even suggest giving up the binky makes us willing to stick with the compromise - for now.

I hope this helps in some way. binky mom

I saw some parents concerned about bottle usage in toddlers. What about pacifiers? Is 2.5 too old to use a pacifier? I don't like the way it looks, but like another mom said, that's my problem, so I haven't pushed too hard to make him stop. I'm more concerned about impeding speech (he's actually a great talker) or problems with his teeth (who knows? he hasn't seen a dentist yet). When he wants his pacifier but maybe I "forgot" to put it in his diaper bag, he'll suck on something else, like parts of his clothing. He also seems to do without it just fine at daycare (except he gets it at naptime), but evenings and weekends, he wants it all the time.

At his 3 year checkup, the pediatrician said that the pacifier has caused a very slight bite problem, but nothing to worry about. The dentist we took him to soon after that had no comment.

On the other hand, my son quit his pacifier before he was 2 yrs, but at some point started chewing and sucking on his clothes. In Kindergarten he came home almost every day with the entire front of his shirt soaked, and over the years he has periods when he still resorts to this habit, so I think, like thumb sucking, it's harder to "quit" than the pacifier.

randice

I have two boys (one now 16 and the other 7&1/2). The elder used a pacifier (which we called by one of its many Spanish names--a "bobo"--meaning "dummy") very faithfully until he was a preschooler. By the age of 4 he had given it up entirely, without any planned action on our part. It didn't affect his teeth, as far as I know. I ignored people who fussed about the inappropriateness of a pacifier for a child "his age" (whatever age he was at the time they commented). The younger was sucking his thumb within the first half hour after birth, so we figured the battle was already lost. In fact, our pediatrician told us not to try intervening, although we did offer him pacifiers until he made it quite clear he wasn't interested! He continued to suck his thumb until a few months ago--although we did get him to stop sucking his thumb "in public" when he started kindergarten. He recently started wearing a retainer specifically designed to inhibit thumb-sucking. He has been sucking his thumb so vigorously since birth that the placement of his teeth and the shape of his upper jaw (we're told) have been affected, so he'll have a retainer and other appliances (headgear) for about 18 months. Some people have told us that we shouldn't have intervened, and just allowed him to abandon the habit gradually, but by 2nd grade he really wanted to stop and couldn't manage without help. He would probably revert if we took the retainer away, even though he's been wearing it for few months--it's a very strong habit. There's a side benefit to the retainer that he pointed out to me: now he doesn't bite his fingernails, either. Tamra