Taking the pacifier

kbarnes719

My daughter is 16 months old and has been using a pacifier at bedtime and nap time. She hasn't been the best sleeper but it seems worse now because she drops her pacifier in the middle of the night and screams when she can't find it. Any suggestions? Should I try to take it away and break her of the habit? Help please!

HeeHee123

"It’s best if a child can be weaned from attachment to a pacifier somewhere between the ages of two and three – in other words, when he or she outgrows the bottle and starts learning to drink from a cup. This is about the same time most children get their first set of teeth.

On the whole, we believe it is wisest if parents avoid turning this into a major point of contention until they are prepared to make an all-out, concerted effort to help their youngster drop the pacifier for good. Leave the issue alone until you’re ready to take action, then pull out all the stops. There is a good reason for this. Quite often, parents have a tendency to talk a great deal about this problem without taking decisive steps toward changing the behavior. They drag the process out until a child develops a complex about it. When this happens, the situation becomes all the more difficult to handle.

It’s also advisable to take an incremental approach to the problem. In other words, don’t take the pacifier away in one fell swoop. Instead, make it available for a progressively shorter period of time each day. In the meantime, provide alternatives. Give the child other options, other activities with which to occupy his or her attention. Get out some modeling clay or Play-doh. Encourage him to paint or draw or play a game. Buy him a squeeze ball that he can manipulate. The possibilities are almost endless.

HeeHee123

 

Cooper81

If you don't want to take it away completely yet, try putting a few of them in her crib, sprinkled throughout so that she has a better chance of finding one when she wakes up.  FWIW we didn't take DS away until 2 1/2 we did a paci fairy, he put all of them in a box for the babies, put the box outside, the next morning the box was still there, the pacis were gone and a few little toys were in their place.