Parent's of Toddlers That Have Pacifiers

There are two schools of thought when getting rid of binkies: ease them into getting rid of them or go cold turkey, the way you went. My older son was a binky baby & we waited til he was 3 to get rid of it so he could understand it better. Well, no binky meant no nap! But I made my bed so that's how it went. He had no problems at night w/o it. When I tried to rid him of it at an earlier age & replace it w/a stuffed lovey, it didn't work, he wasn't ready. Luckily, shortly afterwords, he'd fallen in love w/a stuffed dog & today at 7 1/4 yrs, he still sleeps & travels w/Digby the dog. So, my suggestions: take your daughter shopping for a new lovey of her choice. My boys have both always fallen asleep to music, maybe you could try that. Start a new bed time routine: story in bed, prayers, cuddles or a short backrub, turn on some music & make your exit. Nothing too much as you don't want to be stuck in the same position in a few years of weaning her of something else. Be sure she knows she needs to stay in bed & that you'll check on her later. But the biggest piece of the puzzle here is to stay consistent....if you've given up the binky, then stick w/it, don't cave in & buy her more. Tell her again why you got rid of the binkies. Or maybe you can do a reward chart of some kind: every night she goes to sleep w/out crying for the binky she gets stars or stickers then after a certain amount, she gets some kind of a reward. Just stick to your guns & be strong! Good luck!

We went through the exact same thing with my daughter. We tried to take the binky away when she was about 3 by pretending that the "binky fairy" had come to take them to another baby. She went for it initially, but had an extremely difficult time sleeping. After about a week of misery, we gave it back.

A couple months before she turned 4, I casually started talking about giving up the binkies by her birthday. At that point she had started chewing on the binkies, so I told her that if she continued to chew on them, then every time one got a hole, we would throw it away. By the time her birthday rolled around, we only had one left, and miraculously she actually handed it over to me willingly. That was the easy part (I guess one benefit of waiting until she was older was that it wasn't a huge battle). But again, the sleep became an issue. She hasn't napped since then, which isn't that big of a deal since she's older, but the nighttime sleep has been very tough. For a couple weeks I stayed in her room until she fell asleep, and then gradually she got to a point where she could fall asleep on her own. All in all, it took about 6 weeks to return to normal. It took a lot of time and patience.

Personally, I don't think you should worry too much about waiting until she's a little older. The pacifier is very comforting for some kids, and you might have better luck if you wait... although granted the habit can be harder to break the longer you wait. If you're set on getting rid of it now, just be prepared that it might take time to get the sleep back on track. It's tough, but it will happen eventually. Just try to be patient and plan on a long, comforting bedtime routine for a while! Good luck.

hi C.! sorry that you are going thru all of this. it's not fun! i agree with everyone so far. i have a 6 year old and she was about 2 when we got rid of the paci, mainly because we kept loosing them and we were spending a fortune replacing them, lol!! honestly, i can't remember why we decided to end the paci, but we did. we spent a week or so explaining what "broken" means. then we cut the very tip off the paci the next week, and acted surprised when she came to tell us that something was wrong, and just said "oh sweetie, it's broken!". and that's what we did.

the strange thing is that i actually 'forced' the paci on her because i was so obsessed about her not sucking her thumb. she was a sucker ever since the womb - as a matter of fact, we wondered if she had thumbs because she was sucking it in every ultra sound pic we had !!(and i have about 12 because i was sick while preg). so my reasoning was that it would be easier to get her to stop thepaci than to stop sucking her thumb - we couldn't cut her thumb off!! lol!!

and like the other mommy said, your sweet one may just not be ready. may still need that kind of self soothing. my ladybug is 6 now and she still sucks as a way to self soothe - she sucks her bottom lip, just like her mommy!!

good luck my dear!

You will just have one really rough week or two. My pedi told me to get rid of them when our son was one and he only had 1 night of crying. The longer they use it the more nights of hell. Give it a week and be firm. The last thing you want is a 5 year old with a Paci. Maybe go to the toy store and buy her a special stuffed animal to sleep with? Good luck.

I have never read any evidence that pacifiers cause buck teeth or speech impediments....and I think equating it to a cigarette break is pretty harsh.

Sorry if I'm taking it a little personally....both of my boys had their "binkies" at night until they were 3-3 1/2 years old. (My second one had his sometimes even during the day until he was 3 or older) They too could not live without it and were devastated if it couldn't be found. So many people gave me a hard time about it, but it was very soothing to both of them and there was no reason for them not to have it.

For both of my kids, when they got to be three years I started talking to them about how they needed to be big boys and give up the binkie "pretty soon." I did that for about two weeks so they could get mentally prepare for it. Then when the time came, we went around the house and found all the binkies. We packed them up and "mailed" them to a family member who had a baby, and we explained to the boys that they had to give up their binkies so that the new baby could have them. (It just so happened with both my boys that there were other babies in our family). We told the parents of those babies to go along with it.

Of course, we didn't really mail the binkies to them--but the boys thought we did. They both gave up their binkies easily and were very proud of themselves for giving them to a baby that needed them. My boys are 14 and 9 years old now--and there are no lasting "side effects" of having had a pacifier--other than the fact that they were happy babies!

If your child is that upset about giving up the pacifier, then don't do it yet. She may not be ready yet and that is ok. Trust me, she won't go off to Kindergarten with a pacifier hanging out of her mouth--she'll be well over it by then!

Again, sorry if I took this personally, I hope that my story helped! It just makes my skin crawl when people take something that is so soothing and helpful to some children and make it sound so horrible. (And I don't mean you...I mean all the people who told me I was wrong to give my kids binkies....) Good luck! Let us know how it goes.