I'll preface this by saying I've always hated pacifiers. If they're used for their actual intent, like soothing a baby in a crowded restaurant or helping to soothe a baby back to sleep then cool, not a big deal. It's the kids who have a pacifier in that do not need to be soothed, who are calm and happy but still just sucking away. Also, the kids who are talking through a pacifier or not even trying to talk at all because the things always in their mouth. When Hanley was born I tried saying she was never going to have a pacifier. As a newborn, she cried all.the.time I was practically shoving the thing down her throat! She wanted nothing to do with it for the first couple months of life but eventually she took it.
Hanley has been obsessed with her pacifier since a little before a year old. Around that same time I made the pacifier only accessible to her during nap and bed times. Once she left her crib, the pacifier was no longer hers to have.
I knew this whole time I wanted the pacifier gone by her 3rd birthday. Over the last 3 weeks, one by one, I've started slitting the tips of her paci's and then when she goes to use them the suction is gone, she tells me they're broken, and we toss them in the trash.
She would always just be ok with throwing them away but would ask me if I could fix them. I told her "once they're broken, they go in the trash" and she was ok with that.
We got down to the last paci and I didn't want to slit the tip. So before bedtime last week, I hid it and when she went to go grab it out of her drawer it was gone. I told her the "paci fairy" must have come earlier that day and took it away. She was very inquisitive about the paci fairy, asking me questions about what it looked like, how it got in, and what the fairy does with the paci's. I told her the paci fairy takes big girls pacifiers and gives them to little babies that need them.
Hanley also had a dentist appointment last week in which he was showing me how her bite was being affected on the left side from the pacifier. After her dentist appointment, I kept reminding her that the dentist said it was time to get rid of it. In the end, I told her the paci fairy came because the dentist called her and told her it was time.
Shockingly, there were never any tears before bed but she did have a night terror the 2nd night, which she is prone to, and she begged me for her pacifier. She even went as far to ask for one of Conrads pacifiers. It was very sad and broke my heart. I stayed strong and never gave in even though I wanted to so bad. Each night seems to be a little better but she's still looking in her drawer for it and asking questions.
Truthfully, my first goal was to have it gone by her 2nd birthday but I put no effort forth and finally settled on 3 because since she only got it when she slept it wasn't that bad... I thought about letting her get rid of it on her own time but ultimately I'm happy I decided to stick to my goal. I drug my feet so long because I know how much she loves that stupid thing and I didn't want to see her sad. Hopefully soon it will just be a thing of the past.
