How to get your child to stop using pacifier

Pacifiers are magic. Every mother loves the effect a pacifier has on her baby's temperament. Stick the pacifier in your baby's mouth and he/she is calm!! What a relief! Pacifiers are actually also great for protection against SIDS. If you let your baby fall asleep with the pacifier, it is easier for the baby to remember to breathe since there is more airspace. Additionally, since some babies do need to exercise their sucking reflex, pacifiers help satisfy the need. Moreover, if a child suck his/her thumb, it is very hard to wean him/her off thumb sucking, it is easier to quit pacifier sucking.

HOW?! how could this be easy? Some people do have it easy. My nephew, for example, just stopped using it when he started preschool. My best friend's daughter, on the other hand, didn't stop using one till she was almost 4! That is not the time to be using a pacifier!!!

So how did she stop? Well, this is not a typical case. She got very cranky if she didn't have her pacifier. Her whole family was out together at family friends. After a couple of hours at their house, this little girl got very cranky... so cranky that her pregnant mother had to walk her and her little sister home- which was about a 45 minute walk. That's not an easy walk to do when you are pregnant and have 2 cranky children feeding off each other. Her usually calm and pleasant mother was so fed up that she started to cry to her husband. When her almost-4-year-old daughter saw her mother cry- she got really scared. She went to her room and fell asleep on the floor... and never used her pacifier again- and neither did her 2-year-old sister!

Now, this is not the ideal situation- and to make it easier for you to ween your child off the pacifier, I have compiled some ideas to help make progress. For older children, some pediatricians recommend stopping cold-turkey. Remove all the pacifiers from your house and never let the child have one again. You can do it together with your child in a cute way. For example, you can buy balloons and tie the pacifiers to the string and watch them fly away together. This way the child is aware that they are gone for good. When he/she does get cranky for a pacifier, let him/her cry it out for a day or so- but don't let it magically reappear- since that would be counter productive. Others, on the other hand, believe you should take a more progressive approach. You should inform your child that he or she is a big girl/boy and doesn't need a pacifier anymore, so we will stop using it next week. Instead of removing all the pacifiers from every corner of your house- try explaining to your child that we are going to limit the pacifier to the bedroom only. It's not allowed to be used anywhere else in the house. In this way, the child is on a road to a paci-free life.

Good Luck!