Breaking the Habit!

Did you know that it is perfectly normal, and even supported by most pediatricians, that children who are attached to the binky as a security blanket still be allowed to use it at naptime and bedtime until they are 2 1/2 or 3 years old? It is far less healthy to rip the pacifier away from a young child who is still to young to have appropriate self soothing skills than it is to allow them to have it when it at behaviorally appropriate times. As long as that binky is not hanging out of your childs mouth every moment of the day and its use is not hindering speech, it is a perfectly healthy habit for a 1 year old to have - and if you do take it away cold turkey when your child is too young to understand why you are suddenly taking away their only soothing mechanism for their own good, you are asking for a world of other problems ( seperation anxiety, unwillingness to sleep at either naptime or bedtime, temper tantrums, etc etc). It is far more appropriate to take the binky away when your child is at least old enough to participate in the "getting rid of the binky" techniques, such as "giving them to another baby that needs it" or throwing them away, or whatever method you choose.
As a special education teacher and child psychologist, I recommend that the pacifier be taken away sometime after 18 months of age when a child has a little more depth of understanding so that the taking away of the binky isn't so sudden or traumatic - afterall, you don't want the giving up of the binky to soon to create other bad habits that are even harder to break (such as thumb sucking). Allow your child to have the binky only at naptime and bedtime, at times when its use is appropriate - then, when you finally do get rid of it in 6 or 7 months, it will be much easier to give up when she is not so dependent on it anymore.

My trick :) i used to be a preschool teacher and broke 5 kids from the paci habit, so i know this works. Ok, go to the store and get some soil, flower seeds and a pot. Put a thin layer of soil in it, tell your daughter to drop the paci in then cover with more soil, sprinkle the seeds and last a thin layer of soil and pack it lightly. Then the fun part, give your daughter a little watering can and tell her to water the paci flowers :) in about a week she will be amazed to see the sprouts and will love watering it every day :) hope this helps. Good luck :)

What I tried with my son is do it a little at a time. I took a couple of his pacifiers and cut the tips off so he didn't like them. He was 3 and I had had enough of trying everything else. He had a stash of them because in the morning he would have another one in his mouth. So I didn't take them away all at once. In the morning we would change his diaper and throw his paci in the trash and once we ran out they were all gone. of course he was old enough to understand what we were doing. I think that since she is younger the cutting the tip off may work better. just cut the tip off and leave them in their normal spot and pretend you don't know what's wrong with them, she will decide that she doesn't like them anymore.

Your baby is still young and if she isn't ready don't feel pressured to get rid of it. I know that society says that she should be off at a year. Remember that you are her mom and you kow what's best, if you are worried about tooth problems don't. Pacifiers aren't as bad for them as they originally thought. Your life will be so much easier if you wait until she's ready. Good luck!!

We went cold turkey on the pacifier when my daughter was 10 months old. She was really fussy at bedtime for a couple nights and that was it. I think I missed the binky more than she did.

Our older son was a binky baby & we waited til he turned 3 to get rid of it & wish we'd done so sooner. It also became kinda a crutch for my husband & I....if we couldn't seem to soothe him, the 'giggy' did the trick. He was a loud baby as well, so it also helped quiet him down if he was being loud at the wrong time or place. So I get why you want to break her of it. You're on the right track by only letting her have it at nap & bed times. I'd say go cold turkey. She's too young to comprehend much discussion of why it's gone but young enough that she'll forget about it pretty quick. Maybe you can replace it w/some other kind of lovely like a stuffed animal. Just be sure it's something you can replace easily if the original gets lost of left behind. Ultimately, do what works best for you & your daughter. Good luck!

It sounds like you daughter is on target with outgrowing her pacifier -- she only uses it for comfort when falling asleep. Is there some reason you want to "make" her give it up, rather than allow her to complete the process of letting it go on her own?

Pacifiers fulfill an important comfort function. They substitute for the breast that children, before our "modern" era, would have had to suckle for comfort when falling asleep at this age.

It's important to remember that the notion that a baby of this age should stop getting that comfort has been promoted by dentists, who are eager to preserve your child's baby teeth in a state of perfection. With no regard to your child's larger needs.

Of course at the same time, in 17 years of parenting and working with parents, I have never once seen a child develop an overbite because of not giving up the pacifier promptly at 12 months! So frankly I think they are being overcautious and overextending their influence. Or perhaps they are basing their advice on decades old data, from when we didn't have "nuk" and other orthodontically correct pacifiers...

In any case, what you can be doing right now is to help your daughter develop other ways to feel comforted, especially at bedtime. Holding an extra soft cuddly animal, having a lullaby sung, a little back rub or foot massage, etc.

I'm assuming in all this that your daughter only needs the pacifier to fall asleep, that you don't have to run in during the night to pop it into her mouth. Because doing so would certainly prolong her dependence on it. Those night time wakings when a child has lost track of the pacifier, but manages to fall back to sleep anyway (sometimes after a bit of fussing), are an important part of the process of weaning from it. Because basically he or she is learning that there are other ways to fall asleep, other ways to self sooth.

I think it helps to reframe pacifier weaning as part of the larger process a child goes through of developing confidence and independence. Naturally then, the more a child feels safe, emotionally secure, and feels good about their abilities...the easier it will be for them to move forward.

If your child was closer to 2 and still hadn't given up the pacifier.. then there are little tricks you can try. Such as snipping off the end of the pacifier so it is less appealing. (This works with bottles also, if one has a 2 year old that won't give it up.)

Personally, I don't see the rush. She is still young. Is there a particular, essential reason why you want her off the pacifier by one year? My girls were older when I finally got them off of it and while frustrating at times to see them with it still, overall it didn't hurt them. I prefer to not rush things of childhood since they are little such a short time, and I think she is already doing great by only using it for sleeping times. Little ones need that comfort, I see no need to remove it prematurely. I don't think it does your daughter or yourself any favors to do anything traumatizing either like hiding it or throwing it away. A baby isn't going to understand why her comfort up and disappeared, she'll just know it's upsetting. When possible, I'd rather do things like this in a child-lead sort of way, watching for their signs of readiness rather than imposing what *I'd* prefer on them.

well my daughter got to that stage and i just threw it away..

OK. Did you notice that you used the expression "i want to have her broken by one year"? I would seriously stop and think abotu that for a minute and ask yourself what it is that you are worried about. your timeline is arbitrary, and it's about you, not her. babies do not have "habits". they have needs. when your daughter no longer needs to suck in order to soothe herself, she will stop using the pacifier. a better plan than "breaking" your child would be to identify why the pacifier bothers you and figure out a way to let go of it. before you know it, the binky stage will be a distant memory. let her be a baby for now.

I agree with the last person, it is not a bad habit! If your daughter is like my son I just leave them in his crib or the car. When he is out playing in the living room with his toys, he usually is distracted and forgets he doesn't have it. However, I let him have it at naps and bedtime cause I believe it does more good than harm. It is being proven to reduce the risk for Sids, which more and more cases are coming up in older children! I wouldn't take it away just yet!

the best advice to give you is just to do it cold turkey. I know there will be a few nights of crying, and screaming, but your child will get over it. So maybe you can try it on a night when you don't have to get up early the next morning. Another way that my mother told me about was to dab the pacifier with something that your child will get irritated of tasting. My mother would tell me that she actually put crumbs on my pacifier, and I (as a baby) was so annoyed of it, that I couldn't stand having it in my mouth anymore. Good luck to you!