Kicking the pacifier
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Advice? How do I get rid of this thing? My kiddo is 2.5 years old and is obsessed with it. We've tried limiting it to the crib, but well... sometimes I'm soft and just give it to him to avoid the tantrum. Tell me the strategy that worked for you to get rid of it! |
Anonymous
| We limited it to nights and naptimes, but then our second child was born and DD (2 yr 5 mo at the time) had a huge paci regression and started to use it 24/7. She didn't need just one paci - she had to have one in her mouth and be holding 2 or 3 of them. She would drag them all around the house with her, and one day before her nap I couldn't find ANY of them, so I just told her they were gone and I wasn't getting any more. And... that was that! She was pretty much just like, k, no more paci's, and just went on with her life. It was so weird. |
Anonymous
| Similar to PP we were very worried with DD since she was so attached and always wanted a paci with her. We went cold turkey and said we couldn't find them and she barely seemed to notice. It was definitely not what we expected. |
Anonymous
|
Take a pin and poke a hole in all of them.
You’ll have a miserable five days but then it will be over. |
Anonymous
| We went cold turkey with our twins when they kept waking up whenever the pacifier would drop out of their mouths. It was no big deal—my DD promptly found her thumb to be the perfect sub and DS never missed it. |
Anonymous
| We limited it to the crib and the carseat, then just the crib. We had a whole bunch, so I slowly started throwing them out and when we were down to about 3 they started to get holes in them from her teeth and we had to throw those away. When the last one got a hole in it and wasn't working the way she wanted anymore she threw it away herself (this was at 2.75 years old) and that was that. You do need to start being strict about where the pacifier is allowed though. our only exception was for when she was sick. |
Anonymous
| I wanted to get rid of my daughter's before she turned 3. She used it for sleep and occasional soothing. About a month before her birthday, we would talk about her being a "big girl" when she turned 3 and not needing a paci anymore. Then around her third birthday, we made a big deal out of it. Two of them had stuffed animals attached so we cut off the paci part together and she could keep the animal. No tears, nothing. We did it before a weekend nap, anticipating she wouldn't nap, and she didn't that day, but went to sleep normally. I gave her a big treat in the morning for not crying about her paci (a cupcake, IIRC). I was honestly shocked. Around the same time she got a big pink stuffed unicorn (almost as big as she is) and that became her soothing mechanism. So, it might work out better than you think! |
Anonymous
| We only ever used them for naps and bed. Right around when she turned 2, we told her that we were going to throw the pacifier away in one week. We talked about it each morning when she woke up, and at the end of the week, we said bye bye to her fier and never looked back. She’s put her brother’s pacifier in her mouth once or twice, but only for a second, and she gives it back without protest. |
Anonymous
| We used the sub-a-nub pacifiers with the little stuffed monkey attached. We had a name for him and we talked about him needing to go on vacation to see his family but he’d be back before Christmas. DS accepted it, kissed him good-bye, and that was it. There were a couple nights of a few tears but nothing more. And the little stuffed animal did come back before Christmas with the nipple removed. |
Anonymous
|
We cut the end of my son's pacifier each day for a week. It got shorter and shorter and by the final day he handed it back and didn't want it. It really worked quite well and there weren't any tears.
https://www.popsugar.com/family/How-Wean-Your-Child-From-Pacifier-27330375#:~:text=Snip%20the%20Tip,let%20her%20throw%20it%20away. |
Anonymous
| We did cold turkey for our paci-obsessed boys (they were over 3 and 4YO!). The 4YO was perfectly fine and the 3YO fussed for a few nights (maybe 2-3) but I remember being pleasantly surprised it wasn't longer! You just have to do it, OP. |
Anonymous
| Better paci than thumb. Mine is 4.5 and still sucking her thumb. Granted she slept great ever since she found it at 4 months. But now its a battle for her to stop and is already affecting her teeth. Ugh. |
Anonymous
+1 Worse. I have a double-finger sucker. DD sucks her right index and middle fingers together. Our dentist told us to start saving money for serious orthodontists. |
Anonymous
|
We weaned my DS at 2.5. Started with only allowing in crib but then covid hit and he started using in more. So, we tried to cut tips like some other PPs have suggested. That really upset him because he thought his pacis were broken. So we tried the Frida paci weaning kit. It's a kit where each one gets shorter. He still didn't like it but was a little more accepting that we had to use this special big boy paci. He was over it in less than a week and we never looked back. It wasn't easy for first few days but honestly not as bad as I had made it out to be on my mind.
https://frida.com/products/paci-weaning-system |
Anonymous
You guys I have a suggestion for you! It's called NIPIT. My 6.5 year old DD just finally kicked the thumb habit (she sucked since the womb and even came out trying to suck). We had tried EVERYTHING (gloves, bitter nail polish, cast when she broke her thumb, rewards, scolding). This really works and you can use for any bad habit of finger in mouth. It is expensive (especially since we bought two, one for each arm). But I really wish I would've tried that earlier. https://www.nipit.com/ Happy to share more info if you want. |