Pacifiers - Saying goodbye is never easy

What works most is starting from the beginning. You only get the pacifier if it is being used to comfort you. Once you are done with the crying, it goes into an attainable place (cup on the shelf) that is accessible when you NEED it.
We don't allow children to talk with a pacifier in their mouth. If they are involved in a task, they need to put it away; they obviously don't need it.
We "forget" to give it when they go to bed and only give it if they ask for it; and even then we dawdle giving to them.
So, weening them away is never an issue because it has only one purpose: soothing then upset or needing to calm down.

How to break them of the habit once it's already been made, sorry I can't help with that. I stop it before it becomes a habit.

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Last Christmas my Daughter had just turned 2. Santa took it in return for gifts, lots of them! she is still mad at Santa and we expect him to be given a lip of upset this christmas! but it worked. many times she asked us for the pacifier and offered back her toys. She managed through!

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Neither of my daughters would take a pacifier, though I sure did try those first couple of weeks home. I was the pacifier, though I drew the line when daughter the second would try to latch back onto me as I was putting her into her crib.
Friends and family had different methods for the "weaning", some worked, some didn't. One nephew would walk around with one in his mouth when he was 4. That child's mouth is now an orthodontic nightmare, at least for his parents. The doc will be able to pay for a year of private school for his own kid from the proceeds. ;)

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I can imagine how tough it is to wean off a pacifier. But we had a different problem. Thumb sucking. Unfortunately, you can't put a kids thumb in a box by the bed. We went months of wrapping my child's thumb in gauze every night to keep her from thumbsucking. It worked (primarily because my child wanted to stop as well, but couldn't). But after months of being thumbsucking free, we saw her in the middle of the night with her thumb in her mouth. Hope it was just a fluke.

I wish you well with the process....it's tough!

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We used the 'pacifier fairy' as an exchange after 3 days of working up to the idea. We originally took DS (22 months) to the toy store to have him 'pay' for a toy with his pacis, but he didn't quite get the idea. So when we got home, we told him he could leave his pacis with the pacifier fairy, and when he woke up, he'd have a new toy. He willingly put his remaining pacifiers in a bag and left them before a fairy statue we had and hasn't gone back. He asked for them for a few days, but the reminder of the new bike was enough to distract him at that point.

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We did what Lindsay tried with my daughter when she was about 26 months and it worked out fine for us. We talked about it for about 3 days beforehand and she did great. Now this isn't my idea at all, I read it on another website, but it is GREAT: take the child to Build a Bear and put the binky inside the toy so they know that it is still there with them. I would have done this myself if I had thought about it.

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I stopped giving my children a pacifier at about 6 months- the same time we sleep-trained them. We only used it at bed/nap times until then. It was hard at that age, mostly for me because they had to learn now to self soothe instead of getting to sleep with a paci. But i'm betting it's a whole lot easier at that young age to call it quits than when they are older.

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I remember when my daughter lost her beloved last paci. We had been throwing them out and telling her to keep track of the last one (she was about 2.5 years old), and one day she lost it and I couldn't find it, and after an hour of searching everywhere while she screamed she was suddenly quiet. She had fallen asleep! It was still a rough couple of nights, but we lived through it.

My son was easier still. He just went to sleep one night without it, and we realized it after he was asleep (it was sitting on the coffee table), so we did an "experiment" by not giving it to him the next day/night, and it went perfectly fine.

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Hold on to your hats ladies.....my 7 year old still uses his at night. I don't see the big deal. I hear countless stories about people who sucked their thumbs until they were 10 years old and up. He'll stop when he is ready. Big deal, there are more important hills to die on.

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My son gave it up at 10 months with no problem. One day we forgot to use it at nap time and then I never gave it back. My 17 month old daughter is extremely attached and we've started only giving them to her at bed time. She still finds them around the house sometimes, then we just go up and put them in her crib. I'd really like her to give it up because I'm thinking the longer we wait the harder it will be.
I had someone tell me to poke a hole in it so she wouldn't like it anymore. Someone else told me they sent them to the "binky fairy" in balloons. I'm not quite ready for the rough nights so I guess I'll try to take it completely away in the next few months.

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We left ours for either Santa or the Easter Bunny. I forget which. The idea is that our children were too old for them so the Bunny or Santa would give them littler children that needed them.

So far, no animosity towards either character since it was replaced with much better things.

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With our youngest, we simply took them all away when we noticed he no longer needed them. Two semi-rough evenings, and the binkies were gone. He now uses a stuffed animal, and I'll admit, I'm 25 and a mom of three, and I still have a bear in bed with me. : )

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Oh, ME, that's nothing - my *mother* still sucks her thumb at night, and she's turning 60!

Hasn't harmed her teeth as near as I can tell. I mean, her teeth were very crooked as a child - but so were mine, and I didn't suck my thumb or use a pacifier, so I think that's hereditary. And her teeth were straightened, but she still kept thumbsucking and... they aren't crooked now that she's an adult.

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I needed this..... I am currently going through this with my 2 1/2 yr old. Its been over a week and I want to give in every time she goes to bed. She has become the most rotten child... sounds harsh... but true. She isnt napping anymore so by 3pm WATCH OUT!!! On the up side she is ready to pass out by 6:30pm.

My oldest had her binkey taken away around the same age. I gave her to option.... use the potty or loose the binkey. It was up to her. She choose to loose the binkey..... and potty trained herself a few weeks later. However, a year later she found her thumb. Now I have a 4 1/2 yr old who sucks her thumb.

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I tried to get rid of them when my son was 3. I tried trading them for toys and the binky fairy, neither worked as he found more he had hidden around the house. I finally told him we weren't going to buy any more binkies and he had to use the ones he had, whan he lost them, they were gone. He lost all but one and magically held on to that one for dear life. One night, while he was sleeping, I snached it and cut the tip off of it. He complained that it was broken, but accepted it when I reminded him that we weren't buying any more. Within a day or two, he gave it up completely, on his own.

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Each day snip a miniscule piece off of her pacifier. Eventually it will stop doing "it's job" in her mouth. Because you are snipping small pieces off she won't notice. She'll stop wanting it on her own and you don't need to get rid of it cold turkey.

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My sister left hers out for the "Pacifer Fairy" to come. They left them on the doorstep and the fairy came that night and took the pacifers and left a really cool toy for her daughter. The Bottle Fairy and the ever famous Tooth Fairy have also frequented their house. I am definetly going to keep that one in mind when my son has to give his pacifer up.

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We started by only letting him have the pacifier for sleeping. Then after a while of that routine we cut the tips off and told him they were broken. That way we were still able to give them to him when he asked for them, and he could see that they weren't useable so nobody was the bad guy. He was about 2 1/2 at the time and I have to say the big deal for us in wanting to break him of the habit is that he had it in his mouth 24/7 and even talked around it. If he didn't have it for some reason, then he put something else in his mouth, so it was the oral fixation that concerned us.

My youger son just turned 2 and still has his but he's never had that 24/7 attachment so its not been a concern. Our child psychologist says there is nothing wrong with it and it is a transitional object for children that they will let go of when they are ready. When his preschool wanted to completely break him of it (he was only taking it during naptime) the psychologist called them nazis. So I feel unless you think they are way too old, or they have an unhealthy attachment somehow, it's not a big deal to let them grow out of it on their own.

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