Tot Attached to Pacifier

I told my daugher that the easter bunny gives binkies to itty bitty babies and he thought she was a big girl now. If she left her binky under her pillow he would take it and give it to an itty bitty baby who needed it and he would leave her an extra special gift with her easter basket. IT WORKED! She was trilled with her gift and the fact that the babies got it. She never asked for it again. this year when easter rolled around she asked me what did she have to give the easter bunny this year? She wasn't going to give him her blanky. ;) I told her that I thought he would be very happy to receive a carrot. hope all goes well

I know lots of kids who had passies and their teeth were fine. It won't change the shape of his gums,,,and his teeth are as they are, passie or not. My daughter's dentist said the passy can create more cavaties though,,so brush his teeth often,,and do not give it until you brush his teeth after he eats. Also, in the famous words of my Great Aunt who had 10 children,,all who grew up with perfect teeth, are all smart, wonderful parents now,,,,"He will not go to college with a passy, so if it brings him comfort and you peace and quiet for while, how bad can it be?" My daughter got rid of her passy on her own...one day, she decided it was for babies and we mailed her passies to Santa for other kids to use.

Unless you are willing to put up with a couple days of whining or screaming, as my son did at 2 1/2 yrs old, it's going to be a long road. My son is a "screamer", and it only took him a couple days to get over it. You aren't hurting his feelings, or scarring him for life by letting him cry. Trust me, it will make your life a lot easier if you don't have to search for a binky all day, and bump your head on the crib bottom crawing underneath to get the darn thing!

Pacifiers aren't going to ruin teeth. Thumbs do, but not pacifiers. My son was attached to his well past 2 years old. I totally understand how hard it is to hear your child in any kind of pain but if you want him to get off the passy you're going to have to put your foot down and keep it down, even on yourself.

Good luck!!

First I'd seek out professional advice from both your pediatrician and a local pediatric dentist. You can call either of them for peace of mind on dental damage, and when you should worry about it. Typically it's not until well into the 3rd year before any dental damage could be done according to my doctors. My feelings on it are that if I've introduced the passy to my son, then I've indicated to him that it's ok to have it - so I must be patient and gentle in my efforts to take it away, after all I made it acceptable and suddenly it's not - that will be confusing to my son I'm sure when I try to wean him. I'm hoping that I can encourage a trade with my son around 24-36 months, once he communicates better w/ words. Maybe trading it in for a big boy toy or another lovie. I'm not quite sure how I plan to approach it yet, but I won't expect it overnight, cold turkey works for some, but it's not my pref. Right now I'm encouraging the passy use only during naps, car rides, and bedtime - if he feels like he wants it more then that I will get it for him, but I keep it above his reach until he 'needs' it. Otherwise, during the naps/car/bedtime, he has it at his access right now. Good luck!!! I know you'll find what works for you!!

there is this stuff you can buy at babies r us, it's called sour apple, (you can get it in other flavors). It works. I did it with my stepdaughter, it's just a bitter tasting spray that you spray on the pacifier.

Hello S.! This is what worked for me for both of children. One night after they had fallen asleep, I confiscated all of their pacifiers. I then cut half of the pacifier tip off. Of course they still had the one the had slept with. When they woke up the next morning, it was business as usual. However, I quickly snipped the night time pacifier as well. They when they wanted a pacifier it was no longer any good. They both put it in their mouths, took it out, looked at it and then tried it once more. They took it out threw it on the floor and said, "pacifier broke!" That was it. Good luck.

If your 18 month old was like mine then he has started to chew holes into the pacifer. I explained to my daughter that once they (most likely your son has more than one pacifer) had holes in them they had to go bye-bye. I would throw them away and not replace them. Within a month she was down to one. I then started hiding that one during the day and each time making it harder and harder for her to find. And soon she was spending so much time trying to find it that she lost interest. End of pacifier. Good Luck!!!

When it came time to break our daughter of her paci, our pediatrician recommended cutting the very tip off it one day and cutting a little more off every day after that, It breaks the suction and they don't want it any more. My daughter tried to talk us into going to buy her a new one when her's was "broken" but we told her we didn't have any more paci money and she would have to make do with what she had. Within 4 days she was broken completely.

We had the same problem with our son. Someone told me to cut the tip off the passy and it takes away the function of it. (not a lot where he could put his tongue in the hole, but just a little off the tip) Then they can keep the passy for comfort, yet the passy does not work.

After we cut the passies when we put our son to bed he would grab his passy put it in his mouth, then take it out & look at it, put it back in for the 2nd time then take it back out again and hold it.

He never cried and that was a big relief to me and my hubby since we started giving him the passy to soothe and comfort him in the first place.

10 days breaks a habit, so then you can take all the cut passies out of his crib. Good Luck!

Hi S.!
My daugther was also very attached to her pacifier. The one and only trick that worked for me was a balloon. My dughter was in love with Dora and balloons. So what I did was told her that Dora wanted to take her paci up to the angels for all the little babies in heaven that were waiting for a mommy and daddy. So after about two weeks of talking about giving up her paci, we went to Party City and I let her pick out her very own ballon (which was a HUGE Dora balloon). We went home and we both tied her paci to the end of it. She told her paci bye bye and kissed Dora and we let her go. We watched her until we couldn't see her anymore and my daughter has not asked for her paci since. That was a little over a year ago.
I hope this helps.
Good luck!
~T.

we have 2 boys, 1 sucked the 1st 2 fingers on his right hand and the other sucked his thumb. both quit by themselves right after their 2nd birthdays. our daughter was a pacie baby. she also started to want it all the time. we started a "pacie bucket" when she got in her crib to go to bed she got to pick a pacie. when she got out of her crib she had to put it back. we started this when she was ~15 months old and it carried on until she was 2 and 1/2 years. That christmas we wrote a letter to santa to give all her pacies to another baby. santa wrote her a letter and left her a special toy. she asked for her pacies maybe 3 or 4 times over the next 2 weeks, that was the end of her pacies. now when she sees a baby with a pacie she asks if if was one of her pacies from when she was a baby. good luck!

My son got off the pap at 25 months. It was a nightmare for about a week, but believe it or not, he was fine at night time, just not in the car. We just went cold turkey and dealt with the tantrums for a while. A friend of mine however had a neat way of weaning her daughter. She tied the pap to the refrigerator and if she wanted it, she had to stand there and suck it! GOOD LUCK and hang in there! Everything will work out! I promise!

I could have written Sarah's post myself! I have two children and both have reacted differently to their Pacifiers. My daughter is an independent type and she adapted quite easily to self soothing. She gave up her pacifier on her own and very early on. My son was more emotional and he needed alot of soothing and coddeling. He latched on to the pacifier and didnt want to give it up even as a toddler.
Do Seek advice of your pediatritian and Pediatric dentist. I did and it eased my mind that it wasnt harming his teeth (which had already come in by that time). Our Pediatritian cautioned that we had given the pacifier to our son as a soothing agent, and that since he wasnt willing to give it up, then he was most likely still needing it as such. And he was still using it to sooth himself when he went to sleep or was anxious, scared or nervous. His Doctor asked us to examine the reasons why we were in a hurry for him to be pacifier free. Was it for OUR needs (maybe a worry of what other people say or thought of him still using it) or HIS needs (dental/health). With our dental concerns behind us, we decided the heck with what anyone else thought about the pacifier, if it was what he needed to comfort and sooth himself then he'd have it. We watched for signs so we knew when it was time to start to limit it to naps, car rides, stroller time, upset times and bedtime so that he understood those were 'soothing' times and when he was out of the car or stroller it was 'big boy' time. I also stopped buying new pacifiers so that the current ones started to lose their appeal as they got old. Eventually he handed me the pacifier and didnt want it back. He'd reached the point where he was ready to seperate from it on his own and he never looked back.

It shouldn't be too much of a problem with him being 18 months old, but I personally wanted my daughter off the pacifier when she started getting a lot of teeth in. So I started to wean her off it around 9-10 months, and just shortly after that she just didn't need it anymore. She stopped using it before she turned 1 year I think. I just tried to only use it during nap time when I was weaning... and if she got fussy I would just deal with it and try to distract her with toys or maybe a snack or her sippy cup with some water in it. It worked for me, and it wasn't too difficult. Good luck with it :)

i had the same problem but with the bottle everyone said get them out of the house and dont give in and my Allen cried for a couple of days but after that he didn't even remeber the bottle an he is fine with his sippy cup so my advise to you is throw all the pacifers away and he will scream and pitch a fit for a few days but after that he will be fine orrrrrrrrrrrr

option b

Do you know anyone with a new baby????

let him give his pacifer to the new baby tell him the baby needs a pacifer and its time for him to pass his on to the new babies. One of my friends did this with her little girl and it actually worked.