Pacifiers, Part II

In last week's post, a mom wrote in asking about weaning her 3.5-year-old, Katie, from her pacifier. In that post I discussed the various opinions about whether or not a child that age should have to get rid of her paci, and concluded that weaning her would be best.

Here's a list of pacifier weaning techniques:

1. Cold turkey. You'll have to deal with crying for a few days to a few weeks. It may help to keep Katie up late till she crashes for the first couple of nights. My mom taught me to cut with scissors the night I gave up my paci (giving it up was my idea, though, as she had always drilled it into my head "when you're a big girl you'll throw your paci in the garbage" so I did). I stayed up really late cutting paper and watching TV with my parents till eventually I crashed.

2. The Paci Fairy. Go around the house with Katie, collecting all her pacis and putting them in a fancy gift bag. Before Katie goes to bed, take her outside and help her hang the bag (or a bunch of loose pacis) on a tree branch. In the morning, the fairy will have left her a special prize.



3. Needy Babies. Tell Katie the new babies in the hospital don't have any pacis and they really need some. It will be a wonderful good deed on Katie's part if she'll help you put them all in a box and to send them to the new babies in the hospital. You can even have her decorate the envelope and write a special message to the babies.

Some parents combine methods 2 & 3, telling kids that the Paci Fairy will come collect the pacis and bring them to the new babies in the hospital, and leave a prize for the good little children who give up their pacis.

4. Sticker chart. I've never seen this done with pacis, probably because it's best done cold turkey. But theoretically you could do one with small prizes leading up to a big prize when she's ready to get rid of it altogether.

5. Books. Read books with Katie about saying bye-bye to paci. There are tons of them, although I don't have personal experience with them so I can't recommend any specific ones. There was a great one that my sister-in-law had for my nephew a few years ago, I don't remember what it was called. It was about a little boy who made a house for his pacifier out of a cardboard box. He used to peek in at it through the window when he missed it.

6. I think making a little house with Katie for her paci is a great idea too!



After some research, I also discovered the following ideas:

7. Make the paci taste bad. I've heard the same with weaning from the breast - rub vinegar on your nipples and tell her your milk has gone bad. It sounds a little cruel but it does make the decision your child's and not yours. Some websites suggested chili pepper but I'd go with the vinegar.

8. Lose it. This shouldn't require a lot of work on your part. Pacis go missing all the time. Just stop buying new ones. If for some reason they don't go missing in your house, just put one away (or throw it out) every few days. Tell Katie there are only a few pacis left and when they're all gone, that's it. She'll be sad but it makes a lot of sense - there just isn't a paci to be had. Again (at least in her mind), you're not the one taking it away.

9. Break it. Start by poking a tiny pin hole into the paci. For some kids, the loss of resistance when they suck is enough for them to lose interest. If this doesn't deter her, you can cut off a tiny bit of the tip. When she shows you that her paci's broken, tell her that pacis are for babies. I'm sure this is something you've told her countless times before, but now add that babies don't have teeth, and because Katie's a big girl, she has big girl teeth and they're too sharp for a paci. She'll probably get fed up with her half-a-paci and trash it herself.

I hope that with all these options, you'll find something that will work for you.

Good luck, and remember: transitions like these feel like they last forever, but in the grand scheme of things, a few rough nights (or even a few weeks of rough nights) are not all that much in the course of your or your child's lifetime. One day you'll look back on this, just like you will with potty training, the first day of school, and a million other things, and wonder "why did I make such a big deal out of that?"

The Great Pacifier Debate

Q: I am against pacifiers big-time, especially since kids seem to hold on to them until they're 4, 5, 6 or older these days. My husband thinks I'm exaggerating and worried for nothing.

My eldest child, Katie, is 3.5 and has had a pacifier since she was 3 months old. From the age of one we have limited it to bedtime and naps.

We prepared her to get rid of her pacifier when she turned three and would be a "big girl," but when the day came my husband insisted she wasn't ready so we waited. A few months later Katie said "Let's have a party." We collected all the pacifiers, sang bye-bye to them, had cake, an it was finished! Or so I thought.

That night she was hysterical. We tried giving her toys and treats, staying in the room with her, nothing worked. It's been like this for a few weeks and I just don't know what to do.

I'm guessing that part of the problem is that Katie's brother, who is less than a year younger than her, still has a pacifier. The two are joined at the hip an think they are twins. I think he should give up his paci too, but my husband says I'd be "punishing" him by making him give it up at only 2.5!

Advice?????



A: There are two camps when it comes to pacifiers.

1) It's bad for kids' teeth and it looks ridiculous. Pacifiers are for babies.

2) Pacifiers fill an emotional need. If you take it away before they're ready, they're going to react/act out in some other way or just find something else to attach themselves to for comfort instead of the pacifier. Let your kid keep her pacifier for as long as she needs it. Eventually she will give it up on her own.

Until I heard position #2, I was a strong advocate of position #1. I still believe a pacifier should be gotten rid of at around a year, when dentists recommend it. Kids at this age should be able to soothe themselves to sleep and it's much easier to take it away when they're younger than if you wait till they're older. When they're young it's just a tool. When they're older it's almost a part of them.

Of course, this is irrelevant to you because your kid are long past that stage. So let's deal with the here and now.

You are absolutely correct that you're not going to be able to get Katie to give up her paci if her brother still has one. And at 2.5, he is old enough to get rid of his. Anyway it's best to deal with this all in one fell swoop - why have to do it all over again with him in a few months?

Unfortunately the bigger issue here is convincing your husband. Just like in my last post, this is not as much a parenting question as it is a marriage question. It is still partially a parenting question because you're still struggling with exactly how to get rid of Katie's paci, but it's more a marriage question because if you and your husband were both on the same page it would be a whole lot easier to make a plan and stick to it.

In general with questions like these in which the parents are at odds about how to approach a parenting issue, I say you have to pick your battles. But you NEED to get rid of Katie's paci. Dentists say a baby should not have a paci past a year old. Pacifiers can cause speech problems and recurrent ear infections. I suggest you collect some articles outlining these facts and present them to your husband. Tell him "To you it's not a big deal for Katie to keep her pacifier, but that's because you don't know the facts. Here are the facts. We need to do what's best for our kids, and we are starting today. I'm happy to discuss other aspects of parenting with you and come up with compromises, but when it comes to their health, if there is a clear-cut answer about what is better for them, we have to do what the research says."

Now, you're still going to have to deal with Katie's emotional attachment to her pacifier. She might become clingy, or weepy, or obstinate. She is definitely going to need a lot of love, attention, cuddling and understanding. One thing you have on your side is that your two kids have each other. If they're anything like my kids, Katie might be so busy taking care of her little brother and telling him "Don't be sad, it's OK, you can do it" that she'll forget about her own plight!

There's a good possibility that Katie will feel the need to replace her pacifier with a different comfort object. You'll probably be annoyed if she does, but I say let her do it if that's what she needs to feel secure. At least it won't be ruining her teeth. She'll get rid of her comfort object when she's good and ready.

I slept with my blankie until I was ten or so, and I think I turned out OK.