My best friend is a dentist and her kid used one until 5 at night. I was shocked!!

Age 2. We bribed with a much desired toy purchase.

I think 4 is too old and I'm chill about extended paci use. I had mine until 4 and did have orthodontic issues, but probably due to genetics.

I had a thumb sucker, there doesn’t seem to be as much of a stigma with a 3yo thumb sucker ad there is with s 3yo with a paci in her mouth. Anyway, I would say sometime around 3, almost 4. Our dentist said DD was changing the shake of the roof of her mouth so needed to stop. We got her to cut down to naps and bedtime. Then did a huge bribe to get her to stop at those times. It worked.

We had a paci party when DD was four and put the paci in a beautiful box on her shelf. We talked for weeks beforehand about it and had cake and invited her favorite aunts and nanny to stay for the party.

She was actually fine without it.

And yes, it did mess up her teeth.

Anonymous wrote:Embarrassed to say how old he is, but my DS *STILL* insists on having a pacifier to fall asleep with. It falls out of his mouth the instant he's actually sleeping, so we haven't made a big fuss of it as of yet...But at what age would you start to insist that the paci goes away?

His teeth haven't seemed to be affected at all (confirmed this with the dentist) I suspect just because of how little time he actually has the paci in his mouth at night.

WWYD here?

You insist that the pacifiers go away. Your child does not make the rules.

Never it messes up their teeth

My first dropped it on her own at 6 months. My second until she was 3 and made holes in them and started not liking them anymore. My third at 3 also. We took it away because he was asking for it more than just for sleeping. Like yours OP he would not use it for long after falling asleep, but our son wanted it for nap, in the car, when he was upset, etc.
also, he would look for it if he woke up in the middle of the night.
We explained to him that he was a big boy now and he needed to stop using the pacifier. He got a really nice toy he wanted instead. It was hard the first nap and the first night… it hasn’t been a problem after that. This was about 3 months ago.

My niece was a huge and long pacifier user and did not need braces. My kid never used one and did need braces...FWIW

Anonymous wrote:You didn't say that age OP

Sorry, was somewhat hoping to avoid that. But, DS is 4.

You didn't say that age OP

How old is he OP? I promise you won't get any judgment here, I'd just have different advice if we're talking about a 2 year old, vs like...a 12 year old.

We took DS's away at about 18 mos but he switched to sucking on a blanket instead and it got really gross. So, we let DD keep hers until her 3rd birthday and she gave it up then without a fuss. Our dentist said at 3 he could tell she'd used a pacifier but wasn't concerned, that the teeth would settle back into position, which is what happened. FWIW, my older who used it for less time needed braces while my younger didn't need braces ( they are 17 & 19).

I wasn’t planning on taking it away from our 2.5yo but the dentist told him he needed to quit it and ….he did. He was like “I’m sad the dentist said no no but it’s ok.”

If you want to stop, when you want to stop, get the dentist to give the kid the talk

Embarrassed to say how old he is, but my DS *STILL* insists on having a pacifier to fall asleep with. It falls out of his mouth the instant he's actually sleeping, so we haven't made a big fuss of it as of yet...But at what age would you start to insist that the paci goes away?

His teeth haven't seemed to be affected at all (confirmed this with the dentist) I suspect just because of how little time he actually has the paci in his mouth at night.

WWYD here?