June 29, 2011

What To Do About This . . .

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The time is drawing near. And I dread it.

Ollie boy is our fourth Lee baby to love him some pacifier. Though we are to the point where we try to reserve them for naps and bedtime only, he’s been known to crawl under his crib searching greedily in the middle of the day for one he may have dropped during the night.

He can say it by name. “Paci?” Asking for it like it’s an old friend.

We normally rid our home of pacifiers right around the second birthday before the addiction becomes so strong we can never break it. This time around, we’re holding out until we fly to Utah for a wedding in August. Then it’s bye-bye paci. And it will suck bad – pun totally intended.

Any suggestions? How have you cured your kids of the paci, thumb, bottle, etc.?

9 comments:

Stacey Gerlach Moe said...

We need to do this, too, and dread it. Benny is 2.5 years old but our doctor said it is okay until 3. We are doing that because we would rather have him use a nukers (that is what we call it) then having him suck his thumb, which you can't take away.

Good luck! We will be in the same boat soon!

Margy said...

Tyler is only 13 months right now, but I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I too would rather he use it than a thumb since I can't take the thumb away! We've already restricted it to nap/bedtime and car rides. I want to cut back on the car ride use soon, but I don't think that will go well.

We just got back from "vacation." I was waiting until after that to even think about this. Now I have to travel for work in August, so if I don't do this soon I'll have to wait until after that so the hubby doesn't go crazy! Tyler is my first so I do not have any suggestions, but will be waiting to hear your approach to it and how it goes! Good luck!

Lori Gerten said...

We took Grace to the dentist when she was 3. She had the nuk for naps and ni-night only. The dentist asked her if she used a pacifier because her teeth were all jutted out. He told her that he had to get rid of it. We had a huge ceremony that day at our house. Grace and I said goodbye to the nuk and then she tossed it over the hill in our backyard. She never looked back. Please no commenting on the littering. . . :)!

Anderson Zoo Keepers said...

We pulled the paci to naps/night only with the first two at 12 months and then gone forever at 18 months. I don't remember there being a ton of drama, I just did it. I think I might have cut them? Anyway, I had Emma and Trenton on two different kinds so they wouldn't trade them. Because Trenton came on the heels of Emma, I was more resistant to giving his up. Peace is a beautiful thing right? So I was dreading it and let him have it until Talon was home from a deployment, we'd moved and settled, etc. I think he was at least 2. I made Talon do it. He went in, gathered them up and told Trent they were gone. No fuss, no muss and we had no issues at all. I was stunned. I think sometimes we build the drama up so much in our minds when in reality kids just accept it and move on.

Anonymous said...

I was at your exact point a few weeks ago with our 2 1/2 year-old and because I was anticipating an international flight (10 hours, customs, layover, 3 more hours -- oh, and I am traveling along with five kids!) I waited. I had two binkies carefully stashed in my carry-on, but when the boy awoke in the middle of the night grumpy and disoriented on the plane, he chucked the one he had and the other one was nowhere to be found! It was a LONG flight, but there was no way I was buying a new one when we reached our destination so now we are done forever. Good luck!

The Nerd Mom said...

Both my kids were paci lovers. For both, we restricted it to bed/naps around age 2. I told them they would be too old for them by age 3.

True to form, Maddie woke up on her 3rd bday, tossed it in the trash and never looked back.

Peyton . . . not so much. He has always been a little more shy, clingy & emotional than his sister, so I just kind of took my cues from him as to when the time was right. We did have a night or two where he had trouble sleeping, but it wasn't as bad as I expected.

Good luck!

Aiketa said...

Sorry I can not help with that...

Burton's blog said...

Good luck with the paci! With Hallie, she traded the garbage man a ziplock full of binkies for a toy she wanted. (yes, the man looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to help.) Two yrs. later, she asks me everytime we she a gargage truck if her binkie is in there!

Apis Melliflora said...

Two of our kids had them quite late. The dentist's absolute deadline was a year before wiggly teeth.

I was amazed to see the paci-mouth teeth go back to normal after only two weeks.

I like the balloon send-off or the gifts from the paci-fairy to mark the occasion.