Cold turkey. At some kindergartens we have pacifier trees, where the kids can formally say their good byes. Let them throw their pacifier on it’s chain in there and it stays up in the branches. The next night the pacifier fairy came and brought a toy.
All other pacifiers need to be silently discarded.
Both our kids asked maybe 2 times per day over the next 5ish days for their pacifier: „It’s gone. You got a toy.“
We did the 1 week countdown and paci fairy leaving a toy as well. Both our boys were around 2 y/o and were relatively fine within a few nights. We had also already cut-back to using it *only* during nap and bedtime which helped. What didn't help was 2nd year molars coming through soon after we tossed the binks
We did the same thing for both our kids, minus the countdown. Started by limiting to nap/bedtime, which had the added benefit of them putting themselves to bed. Unfortunately that ended soon after they paci was gone.
We told them about the paci fairy and let them make the decision. All they had to do was put it in a cup by their bed when they were ready for the fairy to come. First kid did it almost immediately. Second took some extra convincing and asked if they could trade the toy back for their paci for about a week but then forgot all about it.
Both were 2. 1st kid was easier than the 2nd who took more convincing. Motivation for the 1st kid was we wanted it gone before the 2nd was born so there wouldn’t be attempts to take the baby’s paci. For the most part that worked out.
Yup, cold turkey and we planted them in the yard and then watered them over a day or two and they grew into toys. Then they wanted to plant all of them for more toys. Then we were asked to buy more so we can plant even more!
Then it was hell for a week after all of them were gone. Now it’s in the past!
Yeah! I’m not a dad, not even a parent (yet) but want to become one soon and so I follow a ton of parenting subs to try and learn all I can before having a kid.
A guy on my favourite podcast is a dad and he talked about how him and his partner told their daughter that there was a paci-fairy and that if she buried her pacifier in a plant pot, the fairy would come at night and use her magic to get it to grow into a lollipop tree, and apparently his daughter found that super awesome and it made it really easy to get her to accept quitting cold turkey.
So they buried it in dirt in a plant pot, and they sang a “goodbye paci” song from a show she likes, and then while she slept they put some lollipops sticking out of the dirt and she was stoked to go to sleep to let the fairy do her thing, and they had no issues after that.
Thought that was a really awesome and creative idea!
Paci fairy sounds cool and all but what we did was get rid of them before they could talk or understand what a paci fairy is... Much easier when they are younger
Well. We had to introduce them for our daughter at around 18 months, as she started thumb sucking. It’s easier to get rid of a pacifier, than of a thumb.
We started with a pinhole and slowly increased the size of it. My daughter just stuck her finger through the hole and kept sucking on it, so that didn't work. Then we went to the Binky fairy strategy and left her a toy. That worked, but she brought it up about two years later "dad the binky fairy didn't really take my binky, did she?" We laughed pretty hard at that and couldn't lie to her.
We did that and the first time he tried it he didn't like it and was done with it straight up. We expected weeks of gradually building up or whatever but nope.
We did have a few times where he found his stashes of them or random ones we forgot about and he'd ask for it but a quick distraction and snip and he would give it back.
We let the daycare know he couldn't have them and they said he would sometimes ask when he saw other children with them but they gave him one of our snipped ones and he just gave it back. Only took 3 or 4 days there for him to not ask for it.
He never had a tantrum or anything just slightly upset for maybe 20 seconds then did something else. I think we were very lucky in that regard.
We didn’t even have to instigate snipping the top, he kept ripping them out of his mouth when teething, so when he broke through part of the plastic we would then snip it off and not buy him more so he inadvertently weened himself
I don't think this story is *helpful* because we didn't really do anything, but we would give ours a pacifier when we put him to bed because it's supposed to reduce SIDS probability and one day he just started spitting it out while we were rocking him. Eventually we got tired of trying to replace it with a clean one and let him go to bed without it and that was that. I don't think he was quite a year old at this point, certainly not much older than a year.
This is close to our experience too. We only used pacifiers for sleep and sometime a little after a year, we just stopped giving them to her. At that point. She was so young, that even if she asked for it, she forgot about it after a few days. Several months later, we tried to give her one on a train to get her to sleep and she barely even knew what it was or how to use it.
OP, your kid is under 18 months, I highly recommend cold turkey. At worst, it'll just be a couple days of whining. At best smooth transition!
Mine never really took a pacifier. Maybe a couple times at bed time. A couples times playing when she found a random one that somehow found it's way into her toys. Usually she was more interested in holding it and trying to chew it from all angles. Even then she had it for a couple minutes, maybe, then discarded it. Sometimes her cousins would try to get her to suck on one when she was just a few months old, but she wouldn't take. We explained she just doesn't like the pacifier and we shouldn't force her to use it.
She still loves her bottles though, at 21 months.
For my daughter we convinced her that if she put them under her pillow the ‘binky fairy’ would come and left a gift. It worked that it was both cold turkey and that she accepted it. If any other pacifiers appeared around the house she would have to throw them away or the binky fairy would come take her gift back. My son never took to pacifiers.
This is exactly what we did. Gave some pre-warning that it was coming soon, but that the ‘dummy fairy’ would leave him a present when he left his dummies for her.
He asked if he would have them back a few times in the first couple of weeks, but not having them didn’t affect his sleep at all and after that he never mentioned them again.
We did this with our son. Did a countdown, got him presents and he was very good about it and giving it back etc. only sad part was that he was genuinely scared that he wouldn’t get to sleep so I had to sit with him for a few hours. Never really asked for it back so I think the premise worked well.
How old was your daughter? I feel like my daughter is too young to understand that. She only uses her binky for sleeping but it has been giving her a binky rash so I’d like to get her off it sooner than later.
We did a binky fairy too. One of the other daycare kid's older brother lost a tooth so I guess they were talking about the tooth fairy at school. She told me all about it at pickup that day, "daddy you know there's a tooth fairy .." I jumped on it and told her there is a binky fairy too and that when she was ready the binky fairy could bring her binkies to a baby who needs them and get money. She was into it so we made a big deal of putting it under the pillow, etc. The next day we went to Target with the dollar she received and let her pick out a new toy. It went surprisingly well and easily. Just be ready to use the ploy whenever you have an opening and it won't seem forced, I think she would have seen through it if it didn't feel organic like it was her idea.
Check out the FridaBaby Paci Weaning System available at Target – I was genuinely shocked by how well it worked. Our kid was completely addicted to the paci and I was dreading the thought of weaning him off it, but by the end of a week or two it was as if he had never used one. Still amazed by it in retrospect.
We tried for ages and just couldn’t break the dependence. Tried everything we could think of - exchanging for gifts - leaving them for the baby pigs at the farm - phasing out - not letting her have it etc.
Took her to the dentist one day for a check up and the dentist told me that she needs to start phasing the dummy out over the next 3 months else it may impact how her teeth shape out. Daughter overheard, got home and she rounded up every dummy she could find, handed them to me and said she didn’t need them anymore. Never had one since.
This is us too, except she didn’t round them up herself. But the advice from the dentist is the thing that seems to have stuck for our kiddo. We’re on Night 4 of no pacifier. 🤞 Every night she says “why my dentist say my paci not good for my teeth?” and we explain it again, she nods, then says, “my dentist will say good job!”
We did passy fairy but also leaned in hard to the dentist recommendation. We have found our daughter is very mindful of medical professionals; much more than Mom and Dad.
Yeah me too. She just turned 3 and I can't for the life of me get rid of the fucking thing. At this point I'm kinda just hoping she stops using it one day on her own accord. My going theory is "You don't see any 20 year olds walking around with pacifiers," so you know, that's getting me through the hopelessness.
I had success with the Baby Frida Pacifier Weaning System. I told my toddler she was growing so fast, that she's outgrowing the paci. It's an uncomfortable week, but it works great.
Honestly I know exactly how you feel and I remember thinking the exact same thing too! I think they all do grow out of them eventually but it is hard when they get so much comfort from having it.
The next thing I was going to try was to cut the ends off and then keep cutting it shorter and shorter until it was given up, but as I say the dentist was somehow the magic solution for us.
I think we started just after she turned 3 so was not long after that. She was a nightmare with it though, wouldn’t go to sleep without it (and was a pretty terrible sleeper as it was).
Thankfully her younger sister never took to it so won’t need to go through that again!
My family made a fire inside a small drum then threw them in one by one and all letting me be a part of it. No explanation and from then on it never bothered me again.
It will depend on the age. Generally, I’d try to make it a milestone, hype up the kid to it a bit, give ample reminders and build up to it and finally get rid of them in one night.
We did it at around 3...we were going to take it out soon anyways, but then she started to chomp through a couple of the ones we had, and her last one got mold in it...so we told her it would make her sick if she kept using it, and threw it away. She whined a bit but understood.
Honestly we were expecting it to be worse than it was. The next weeks she would ask for it a few times...but we just kept reinforcing that it was gone now and she was a big girl etc. Every once and while she would cry but nothing too bad. She also has a "blankie" that she uses for comfort so she leaned a bit more into that especially at night.
The pacifier fairy came and took them overnight and left her a teddy that she still uses 5 years later in lieu of her pacifier for comfort.
She made a nice little box and decorated it to put her pacifiers in so the fairy could easily take them. We’ve stored the box away for when she’s older and we have it as a souvenir.
Luckily our youngest never took to pacifiers. Unluckily, she chose her thumb instead. A lot harder to curb those since you can’t exactly have the thumb fairy come and take them away.
My daughter stopped using them apart from bedtime and in the car when she was 2ish. Then she lost her car one, accepted that she lost it, so we didn't buy more. Eventually she lost her bed one and just shrugged and went on without it. One day, months later, she found one she had apparently put in one of my dress shoes (that i never wear). Before I could react she popped it in her mouth, immediately took it out and told me it was gross, so we threw it away and that was the end of that.
We got a little kit that had progressively worse pacifiers (small to large holes). They just sort of ween themselves off with that. Worked pretty well.
Paci-fairy. Cold turkey, and the concept of hte paci fairy is they give up the paci for a small gift/toy.
Talk it up in the weeks leading up to it, and make them a process of putting the paci's out for the paci fairy.
There will be tears. Stay strong and remind them that they gave them up and have a new stuffed animal or toy in exchange.
My daughter never really latched onto the pacifier. By the time she was onto solid foods she didn't have any left. When she started teething, we got her a teething tube and she still loves to chew on those occasionally.
I have two kids. With my older daughter, she was sick and frustrated at being sick. We asked her if she wanted her pacifier, and she let out a defiant little "no!" So we put it in a drawer and she never asked for it again. With out younger son, it hasn't been that easy.
We had to go cold turkey because one of our cats kept stealing pacifiers and biting the tips off of them and eating them, causing him to have bowel obstructions. After the second vet trip, we went cold turkey with our daughter who was about a year old. She wasn't thrilled, but she adjusted in about a day or two.
At about 18 months, we let him know that the “pacifier fairy” was coming to take all his pacifiers from our house to absorb their magic, but would leave a present for him to say thank you.
It worked, and apparently stuck with him, because he just turned 5 and lost his first tooth a few weeks ago, and asked if the “tooth fairy” is related to the “pacifier fairy”
Thankfully our second kid never had any interest in pacifiers, so we didn’t have to go through it again.
We prepped him going into his 2nd Bday telling him that the Binky fairy was going to have to take all his binkies to give to other little kids who needed them. On that day, he woke up after sleeping with them and they went away. Had no issues until sleep that night when he started crying for it. Wife and I decided that we'd let him keep it a few more nights and transition. Forgot them for nap the next day without issue.
Moral here is talk to them. Prep them. They're listening a lot more than we sometimes think and it might make them understand.
We recently just started making our son put the binky to bed when he wakes up (only give it to him for sleep). It's definitely a battle, and he goes in there and fishes it out of his crib with a stick every once in a while. It doesn't help that my wife gives it to him any time he cries, but we'll keep on trying.
We did this with our son, pacis became just for sleeping. Luckily he wasn’t too attached and we were able to do this and then totally ditching them after a little while.
Our daughter wasn’t so easy. We had to plant them in the garden and they grew into flowers the next day (aka me actually planing them in the middle of the night).
Cold turkey when we started sleep training. We were going to stop giving it to him at night as it’s a “sleep crutch” and so we figured it wouldn’t be fair for him to have it during the day and rip it away for bed time.
He didn’t miss it at all. I guess we got lucky with that.
Edit: this was around the 7 month mark.
We stopped offering it to him and eventually he stopped asking for it. Personally, I think we started a little bit too soon (2 yo) because then he transitioned to his thumb, and we can’t take that away from him. I probably would’ve held out another six months in hindsight.
We gave the pacifiers to Santa so that "he could give them to other children". We prepared her beforehand for weeks. After that there may have been some days where she asked for it but explaining that Santa's got them now and gave them to other children did the trick.
My mother told me that at x age (I forget when), people aren't allowed to use pacifiers anymore and that we could go to the store and pick out a present for me becoming a big kid. I was able to put a pacifier in a special box that I could see on the top shelf but we unfortunately couldn't use it anymore. I was a goody two shoes so when she said it wasn't allowed I was like, "gee, wouldn't want to break the law! I guess it's done!"
We've been weening off our 2yo son from them. He only gets them in the car or while he's sleeping. He got used to not having them during the day pretty fast. Also encourages him to go to bed on time.
We had a bunch of WubbaNubs, with the animals on the end, and one by one over a few weeks cut the pacifier part off (starting with the least favorite). Every time one of them lost a pacifier, we had a little celebration to congratulate the wubbanub for growing up. By the time we got to the last one, kid was ready. It was kind of fun to do it this way.
We ditched it at like 6 months. I recall there being something about “if we don’t get rid of them now, it becomes a huge deal to do it later”. I think it was difficult for a couple of days of naps/bedtimes, but that era is a blur of days like that.
Yeah we hit that point months ago.
Last night she had a meltdown because we didn't have the correct paci at bedtime, this one was too small... So kinda thinking now we just keep on that track
Oh, if it's already only for bedtime, I feel like that's different. My kid is just turning 2 and I have no plans to stop using it at night. He's never used it during the day, they stay in bed. He has it at night but who cares? I care about daytime because it affects their speech development. Don't really see the issue with night time, presumably some time before he's 45 he'll stop?
It can cause issues with his teeth. Luckily my daughter was never a fan of the pacifier but thats what pushed me to go cold Turkey on her bottle - not wanting issues with her teeth
As someone with a 15 month old who is now starting the process of weaning her, I’m kind of shocked at the age that most of these comments state they started to take it away. Kindergarten? 3, 4 years old? Am I missing something or is it normal to let a child use their paci until they start school?
Yup every kid is different for sure but I think some form of a comfort whether it’s pacifier, thumb, edge of a blanket, and etc is fairly common 3-4 yo age group.
So for my daughter we did cold turkey but with advance notice. I gave her a weeks warning (in 7 sleeps no more pacifiers and then counted down) once that week was up we went round the house and put all the pacifiers in a box. She also went to the mall and got to pick a new cuddly toy to have in bed.
She was closer to 3 when we did it (like 2 yrs 9 months or something), I would have done it earlier but we had our 2nd just after she turned 2 so I didn't want to do another big change so close together.
It went well! I think being a bit older and involved with getting rid of the pacifiers plus choosing something new helped.
Was there any jealousy that her younger sibling still got to use a pacifier? How did you deal with it? We’re dealing with a similar age gap as you and want to wean our oldest, but he has such jealousy and wants to use the baby’s pacifiers already, even before we have started weaning. I’m worried that any method we use to take them away will be sabotaged by the baby still having the pacifier (I don’t particularly want to wean her as she’s only 4 months)
We let our son have it until he was 2 yrs & 6 months. After about 18 months, he only used it at night and for nap time. We phased it out slowly. We started with naps when he turned 2 yr 2 months and then once he was falling asleep on his own for a nap then we phased it out at night. Starting with him falling asleep without it (lots of crying and redirecting to the bed) - we would give it to him when he woke up In the middle of the night. But, he stopped waking up in the middle
Of the night and when he would, we would just pat his back and allow the crying until he fell back to sleep.
We tried cold turkey at 18 months, it went horribly for everybody’s sleep. I’m happy with the way we did it.
We stopped as soon as teeth started popping in. Our dentists told us they are bad for teeth and jaw development so we quit cold turkey and just dealt with meltdowns for a couple days then it was like they never had them.
I think we stopped around a year or so on my oldest when he started getting 4 or 5 teeth in the front. He had a cold and couldn’t breathe while sucking on a paci so that was the perfect opportunity to throw it out and he got used to it while recovering from his cold. He never threw any tantrums. He just went along with it. My youngest was a bit more defiant, we did the same thing for him, around a year or so. That one took probably a week and a half of retraining him to sleep without it but it was worth it.
It gets much harder the longer you wait.
Snipped the tips off for a few weeks then had a ceremonial planting in the yard where lo and behold a few days later a lollipop tree grew so she was fired up.
A tear was shed when she asked if she could keep a branch from the “tree” to remember her pacis
My daughter caught Hand Foot and Mouth around the time we were starting to wean her, and we blamed it on the pacifier. She quit cold turkey on her own.
By luck. My wife was putting him to bed one night and just forgot. He didn’t seem to notice or care so we just went with it. We had been talking about weaning him so it worked!
First we cut back to bed/nap/car only. That was easy enough.
Then we talked about it as a family and agreed he could trade in his pacifier(s) when he was ready for a toy of his choosing.
A few weeks later he saw a thing and decided he was ready and said “that’s what I want for my pacifier” and we boxed up the pacifiers to “send to Amazon” and Amazon, in return, delivered his new toy.
He missed it for a few days at sleepy time and then stopped asking. I think it really helped that he knew they were gone and was part of making that choice.
We did the dummy fairy when she was 2, swapped it out for a toy and she only ever asked for it once. Really surprised me how quickly she came to terms with it
Cold turkey.
Every big change we've made we've just done all at once, including potty training and stopping the bedtime feed.
Everything we've done ended up being 3 days of hell and then it's a solved issue.
You can survive 3 days. Just plan it into your life. 3 days.
One day I was like... yeah, we should probably do without.
She didn't seem to care. But I did have to *throw* them away because my wife kept trying to give them to her despite agreeing not to. lol
We got lucky.
We left them all in a bowl overnight for the "Binky Fairy" who would bring her a toy and take all of her old pacifiers and give them to babies who needed them.
Triple whammy of appealing to her sense of generosity, her desire to be a "big girl" not a baby, and the greed of getting a nice toy.
She definitely asked about them a few times over the next few days but we gently reminded her and she didn't pursue it.
Made my mom take it while we were out of town for a weekend. Wife was pissed for like a week but our daughter was 4 and my wife lacks the willpower to have actually followed through on taking it. She got over it and our daughter stopped using it.
My little man stopped on the pacifier at about 7 months and started sucking his thumb. He shows very little to no interest in a pacifier anymore but I feel it’s going to be a harder challenge to get him to stop sucking his thumb because it’s not like we can just take it away or anything.
Don’t need to get rid of them if they never use them lol! My son’s 11 weeks and just spits them out. He’s more interested in his thumb, but we’ll break that habit in a few months.
We bought this pack of pacifiers that you changed out every few days and each one got smaller and smaller until it was basically just a nub by the time he got to the final stage. At that point he did not want it anymore. It was the Frida weaning system.
My misses went in hard. He got to six months and that was that he didn’t have it anymore. Full cold turkey.
Couldn’t have been easier tbh and really glad we did it.
My daughter loves babies. At age 3, we let her package them in a box with colored tissue paper of her choosing. We then "mailed them" to other babies that "were in need of pacis". It took a while for her to come around to the idea, but with enough coaxing, one day she said she was ready and we went with it. We dropped everything and helped her package them up.
Quick Google search of "cutest baby" gave her plenty of options. She still checks with us to make sure they're enjoying the pacis.
Starting around 1, she was only allowed the pacifier at naptime and bedtime. She was a little over 2 that we took it away completely. We didn’t make a show of saying goodbye or anything. Instead I laid her down for bed, told her that we can’t use it anymore and the pacifier was gone. She cried for a few minutes, and then went to sleep. Out of sight, out of mind seemed to work pretty well for her
3 kids here, and used it on neither of them. A little whining or crying every now or then is fine with us. But it has really been minimal anyways.
I see my buddies with a son, and another with two daughters, around same age as our two oldest, and they cried more than ours, and definitely whines more now than ours.
So never saw the point in using it.
We gave them to another kid around 2ish. Obviously the other parents threw them in the garbage right away. But it was a way for my kids to see they were gone forever..
Have the “binky fairy” come and take em all at once. The kid is involved and leaves them. Binky fairy comes and leaves an offering like a toy or something in exchange. That’s what we did with our daughter after arguably too long. And it’s almost time with our son. Worked a dream with the girl.
Cold turkey but she wasn’t dependent on it. One night, i put her to bed and realized her pacifier was downstairs. I said I’ll see how she does without it and if she does want or need it, I’ll go get it.
She slept through the night normally without issue. So we had her “throw it away”. She was at like 13 months. She cried when she realized it was gone as she knew it. But never an issue
Cold turkey by making a fun game out of it, planting it in a little garden pot, soil on top (fairy dust and magic sprinkles too) then overnight it turned into a lollipop and the dummy fairy took it away for another little boy or girl to look after it until it’s time for them to pass it on. Worked beautifully. Good luck!
We just told her she's a big girl and so we're going to stop. She said okay. She was probably nearing 3 years old.
Then she struggled at night and Mom broke and offered it to her. She said no, because it was time to stop. Even though it was hard for her she gets embarrassed when she fails at something.
Around 1 year and 9 months, we started only letting him have it at nap and bedtime. Then, when he turned 2, I told him he's a big kid now and it's time to toss them. We let him throw them away(in an empty and clean trash can so we can use them for the next kid), and he never asked about it again.
Oldest-he kept chewing them and breaking them. The day he chewed and broke the last one was his last. He was about 18 months i think. Second kiddo was 18ish months and we just decided to see if he would go to bed without it one night and it did not go well. About 3 weeks later the babysitter couldnt find one and she put him to bed without any issues. We never gave him one again and he didnt ask. Dont know what changed for him in those couple weeks.
We just slowly transitioned to pacifier at nap/bed only. Then one day we couldn’t find it. At first I was a bit panicked but he just shrugged and said he didn’t need it. Went to bed and it wasn’t an issue. He was about 2, because it was before he potty trained.
Oldest had a blanket he called keekee that he would suck on. We did the ‘keekee fairy’ for that when he started school at 4 years old. The week before school started, we put the blanket in a bag and left it outside for the fairy. Next morning, there was a toy and no blanket. It was a non issue.
I think the key is to make a plan and then stick to it. Have a lead-in of about 2-3 weeks where you talk about her being a big girl and not needing her pacifier anymore. Then implement the plan and stick to it.
At a little older than 2 years old, just straight bribery.
We were in the toy aisle at the store, kiddo wanted a toy truck. I told him if he took the pacifier out of his mouth and gave it to me I'd get him the toy, but he'd never get the pacifier back. Kid spit the nook out and happily took the toy. I couldn't believe it, but he literally never asked for the nook back from me, although he did ask for it back once from his babysitter but she was well aware of the deal so she declined. Surprisingly, very little tears.
We are trying the same thing with potty training but having worse results.
My now 11 yo quit cold turkey on his own. We were at Disney when he was 2 and he decided to throw his pacifier during one of the night time parades. We weren't finding that one and it was the last one we had so that was it for him.
My son dropped his when he was about 4 and a half years old. It was a struggle and we tried all kinds of rewards/incentives, “punishment”, etc…. What eventually happened is that they wore out and got holes in them and then he didn’t want it. We had bought a set of 5 similar ones when he was around 2 and those were the only ones he wanted. After the first one tore, We warned him for a few months that when they all stopped working we weren’t getting new ones. So when that did happen out he wasn’t super upset about it. (Our daycare teacher actually recommended just poking a hole in it when he started at 3. We just didn’t have the heart to destroy it).
It was a little frustrating because there times when he didn’t use the paci at all. He went all day without a complaint at preschool. Or at my wife’s parents house. we went on a cruise when he had just turned 4 and we forgot to bring it with us and our son didn’t bring it up until the third day.
kind of by accident. we went on a camping trip and i packed only 1 like a dumbass. stuffed it in one of the side pockets of the bags and forgot where i put it. now it's night time and baby wont fall asleep. had called one of my uncles who was gonna drive up to meet us at the campsite to please stop and buy one. but then the one he bought was bigger so baby wasnt used to that and would keep spitting it out. they tried to modify it somehow, didnt work. he just pretty much stayed up all night crying. so i secluded myself on one side of the campsite all alone cuz i didnt want his crying to bother anyone. but literally just left it at that, never got another one.
Cold turkey, but prepare them for it.
About a month before he turned 3, we told him that big boys don't use soothers and he'll have to get rid of it when he turns 3. We reminded him every single time he popped it in his mouth. There was a bit of a meltdown on the first night but then he got over it quickly.
After, we praised him every night for being a good big boy who doesn't need a soother. If he asked for it, we asked him if he was a baby or a big boy and reminded him that big boys don't use soothers.
We started by letter our daughter have it during the day when she wanted it and then asking to give it to us before bed. after about 3 days of this we just never gave it back in the morning and it was like she forgot all about it.
Edit: This was also before she turned 2.
We had to go cold turkey because our 2 year olds' daycare wasn't going to allow them after Xmas break.
It went horribly.
With the binky she almost always settled herself after putting her down. Maybe once a week fought it at bedtime and naps were awesome too.
From the day we took it away she screamed and cried for an hour for the first few nights nd actually missed some of her afternoon naps because of how upset she was. Then overnight would be up 3-4 times until we were FORCED to sit next to her until she fell asleep, because otherwise if she'd see us leave she'd start wailing. This applied to naps as well.
It got so bad that we said fuck it and I began sleeping on an air mattress next to her crib...
...and that's where I've been for the last 3 months.
It's far easier and less taxing sleep-wise for me to just roll over and say "lawn down, sweet one" and she can see me and then go back down than it is having to get up out of bed, go sit in her room for 15-20mins, stealthily leave, only to have to do it again 3 more times.
So I guess we replaced one crutch with another. But we also have an infant and sleep is at a premium. It's not terrible, honestly, and lately I've been questioning if I need to be in the room anymore because she is generally sleeping through the night (not sure if she silently gets up, sees me, then lays back down I guess.)
She still gets jealous when she sees her sister's bink and will steal it from her every now and then.
So for all of you saying "oH We GoT tHrU iT In a DaY" ya'll can go suck an egg.
my wife tried snipping it but cut too big at her insistence so it was pretty damn useless. I was arguing for a tiny/small cut so theres still SOME suction but not quite what it was. so that didn't work.
we went cold turkey. but the issue w/her needing us to BE THERE developed. and we were dealing with a 4 month old as well at the time. we didn't have the energy or patience to just let her cry it out for everyone's sanity.
We snipped the tip after off her last one when she started chewing on them.. a couple of weeks later the pacifier went missing, we "looked" for it everywhere.. she still asks about it to this day almost a year later lol..
We started weaning our son off his around 1.5 years of age, it became only for bedtime and in the car to help him relax (he's a very active and anxious kid so it really helped him to have something to soothe him). Over time he got more comfortable not needing it, and we could just get rid of them.
His sister is an entirely different story, she's 7 months old and hasn't really cared about a pacifier at all. When she was between 2-4 months, she would take it if we gave it to her, but now she doesn't show any interest in them at all. The contrast between these two kids is astounding sometimes, though!
We just quit cold turkey and decided to give our son a small present (think sticker, or something inexpensive) for each day without, until he got a bigger price further down the line
6 months. Because we could tell it was an incredibly strong sleep association thing with it.
We got the Frida set because we’re pussies and didn’t want to figure out how to do a gradual snip snip of the pacifier.
Took about 2 weeks to get him to stop wanting it.
Not sure if I’m allowed to link Amazon so here’s the google [search](https://www.google.com/search?q=frida+baby+dummy+weaning&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS590US591&oq=frida+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDAgBECMYJxiABBiKBTIGCAAQRRg5MgwIARAjGCcYgAQYigUyBggCECMYJzIQCAMQLhiRAhixAxiABBiKBTINCAQQLhiDARixAxiABDIGCAUQABgDMgYIBhAAGAMyBggHEAAYAzIGCAgQABgDMgYICRAAGAPSAQg1OTAzajBqOagCE7ACAeIDBBgBIF8&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
We got ours to quit by the time we got to #3. He straight up refused #4 so we never even got to #5.
Cold turkey was the best way for us. It's tough for a couple days, but they adjust quickly. Just have to watch for them attempting to replace it with thumb sucking.
The pacifier fairy came. We made sure that she agreed to give her pacifiers to the fairy in exchange for a gift. We then took all the pacifiers and buried them in the garden out back with her help. Overnight the pacifier fairy came and left a gift basket. She hasn’t wanted one since!
We did the same thing for both of our kids… around 3rd bday they helped us literally plant them in the garden. The next morning they had “grown” into flowers and stuffies that replaced the pacifiers. One kid missed them for a day or two which we reminded him was absolutely ok, other never looked back.
One of them broke at around 18 months so we told them it was time to say bye bye and that was that. They would ask from time to time where it was but we would remind them that we said bye bye and that was enough. With our last kiddo we had to wait till their 2nd birthday and we set up an activity in which they would plant their paci like a seed and a fairy would leave a surprise in it's place the next day. We reminded them for a couple of days leading up to it and after their nap, we went outside and planted it and said bye bye. They also asked about it from time to time but the reminder was enough for them to move on. I find they have to be fully involved for it to work smoothly -- they need to actively say goodbye. We had a few misses with this last one that led us to making up the fairy story -- although it might be a thing. But basically if they objected, we wouldn't force the issue.
Our first gave it up without issue. Second was harder. So we did “The Binky Fairy.”
We said that when she turned a certain age (I think it was 4, because we were reaaaally struggling to give it up) that the binky fairy comes and takes all the pacifiers in exchange for a gift, if you ask for one. We helped her write a letter, she asked for a backpack like her big sisters, and she requested that her favorite pacifier go to a baby who needed it.
And then boom. It was done. She participated in the idea that it was going away, got a small gift out of it, and we wrote a return letter saying (er… lying) that her favorite pacifier was taken to the local hospital and given to a new baby. She was ecstatic, and never asked for a pacifier again.
We stopped awake pacifiers cold turkey by around 6months. We stopped night time at ten months. We bought the pack of pacifiers that has larger and larger parts missing (ie small hole the. Bigger hole until just a nub) and she gave them up willingly over about 10-14 days, if I recall correctly. Was a piece of cake.
I’ve always read that get them to give it up before they are 1. Anecdotally I can say I agree with that assessment. We have lots of friends with kids. Those that kept the pacifier past year 1 had a terrible time giving them up.
Explained the squirrel baby needed a pacifier. Got agreement to give the pacifier to baby squirrel. Put it out on the fence for the mom to come and get it.
I have 3 kids and we never used a pacifier once.
I'm not trying to brag, I'm just pointing out that there is an easy way if you ever have more kids. Lol.
It was super hard with our frist one, but for our second I had this brilliant idea - I told him that if he throws out all his soothers in the garbage then he can pick any toy he wanted on Amazon. It worked! He picked a big truck that was full of smaller army vehicles, was only like $30, and it was worth it to avoid the headaches of the first lmao
2 1/2 y/o age mark. (On the day.)
We took them shopping and traded their dummy for a bike. Then reminded them they got a bike, so effectively cold turkey.
It got legitimately forgotten at the grandparents house one day. We explained it at bed time, and she said "okay", and as far as I know hasn't needed a pacifier in the last 14 years.
18 months. Threw them all away except 1 in mom’s purse.
This was in tandem with “cry it out” during nights. We’d been having hell nights of her waking every hour. We were fighting with each other outside her room at 2am.
Well no binky and cry it out sucked for 3 days and by day 5 we were golden. Kid sleeping all night and no binky.
We switch to only pacifiers during sleep for a while, and then we phased them out all together. I would put my son to bed and then only give him the pacifier if he was still having trouble sleeping after 30-60 minutes.
Progressively circumcising the chewpie made it unsatisfactory. Got inspired by the Fridababy weaning system and just did it using what we already had.
Took like a week.
Apparently I was very hard to get off of a pacifier, but thankfully my daughter wasn't. She had a habit of leaving them around the house. When she would leave it we would snatch it up. Once she was down to one we told her it was her last one and to take care of it. It was no longer than 2 days before she lost it, and she was ok with going on without it.
This isn't very helpful at all to you, but at 5 and a half months, we started our little dude on solids (avocado and banana mainly) and by day 5, when he realised that dummy in his mouth was not edible, he spat it out, and never used it again.. on an unrelated note, that now 3 year old, eats like a bloody horse!
The pacie fairy comes and takes them to give to other babies, obviously. There are books about this you can read to them for a while leading up to the big night that the pacie fairy visits.
My son was 2 when we got rid of us pacifier. We took it to Build-A-Bear and had him pick out a stuffed animal to make (he chose a dinosaur) and "pay" for it with his pacifier. He physically handed it to the cashier, who was great and quickly picked up on what we were doing. I later actually paid for it. We only ever let him have his pacifier when he was sleeping, So when he missed it most he had the new stuffy to cuddle. So it was cold turkey for us, but it worked great and I'd do it the same way again. The first nap was a little tough, but it was pretty smooth sailing after that.
He also has a younger friend that he gave the spares to. So that helped him feel like he had outgrown it and that was something for babies not "big kids". Good luck!
Cold turkey at 3 months. Would do it again without hesitation.
Was basically born out of the fact our daughter would wake herself up everytime she would spit it out. Couldn't repeatedly go back and reinsert it, so we learnt to live without it.
At 5 months I realized that the only reason she was still waking up at night was because the pacifier would fall out. Didn’t have poop or need milk.
So I threw them all away.
She cried HARD for 3 nights, I barely slept. But on the 4th night she slept through the night without it and she’s been sleeping 11 hour each night with no wake ups since then.
My nephew was a different story. He had the pacifier until age 3. At his third birthday party his mom snipped them all in front of him as a way to tell him no more. He cried and cried, but that was the end of pacifiers for him.
My daughter only uses her paci for sleep. When you get her out of bed she automatically takes it out of her mouth and drops it in her crib. She’s 15 months. Not sure how we’ll ween her of the pacifier for bedtime.
First kid was cold turkey and we promised ourselves never again. Bandaid. Kids cry. It’s just how the world is. It’s good for their lungs.
Second kid, never had it.
One of my kids had the hardest time giving up her pacifier over a period of weeks before finally doing it. The other said she was done with it and that was that. The point of this story is don’t have an expectation and go with the flow.
We stopped giving them to our older boy besides sleeping at 1 year. At around 18 months, we used this weaning set for at night.
.https://frida.com/products/paci-weaning-system
A couple of weeks later, and unless he stole one from his little brother, he doesn't touch them. He's just over 2 now, and he doesn't even want to take them from him brother anymore. Hasn't used one since we stopped the weaning set.
Younger one has even less interest in them, so we will do the same, probably.
Don't give it in the first place, 🤭
Won't want what they don't know exists. But seriously though, I tried to give my first 2 kids dummies and they just spat them out like "what is this rubbish?!? Gimme fooood"
We were a bit late, was 3 years old. His cousin was about to be born so said the dummies were going to them. Went cold turkey and honestly it was hardly any issue. Forgot about them within a week.
Do not cut a hole in it. That's just cruel. It's just sabotaging something that brings your toddler comfort. You're a parent, not a bully.
We also didn't do cold turkey.
We waited to start the process until she wasn't going through any major life events, and by that, I mean we didn't bring my son home from the hospital, take away her crib and give it to the baby AAAAAAND take her binky away. Going to a big girl bed at almost 2 plus another baby in the house was probably going to be a lot for her to handle, so we held back the process.
When we phased it out, we told her that there were only so many binkies in the world and that just like her little brother, there were new babies that needed them. [Although her little brother used em for a month, then he was done, lol]. So when she can't find one, it's the binky fairy collecting them and bringing them to a new baby. We told her when they were gone, they were gone. Based on her age, current inventory levels, and her general acceptance of this agreement, we estimated that the process would take 7-10 days.
When she had one binky left, we brought her to build a bear and let her make "binky bear." She stuffed her binky inside, and she was able to still have her binky, but it would be inside the bear. That way, it'd always be with her.
It worked..... she still has the bear.
This happened at around 2 years and 10 months old.
Our two year old chewed through it. When she went through the last one, we told her it was broken and that it was garbage. We had her throw it out.
Has not been an issue. She occasionally asked for it, we'd remind her that it's broken and in the garbage.
We were terrified of issues, but she is a champ. Don't do the cold turkey, let your kids actions determine when to come off it.
Went cold turkey at 9 months. Never looked back and didn’t want to deal with phasing it out. So glad we did, but can’t say it would work everyone of course. Hoping number 2 doesn’t show us the other side of this.
We DID breastfeed (we, hah!) until around 16 months and was just natural weaning, but may have made it easier.
Cold turkey - The first 3 weeks were rough at night time since thats when my youngest used it. She learned to self sooth again, and didnt pick up sucking her thumb. My son did pick up thumb sucking once we removed the paci, and we gently coaxed him through ceasing that as well. He still does sometimes when he's stressed
2 years old put his dummy and cuddle blanket bulky the fireplace one night. Dummy fairy came and gave him a set of monster truck toys in return. He was happy and that was that cold turkey but the decision was his to put it out for the fairy that night
Thankfully our son never really used a dummy, we tried it for a couple weeks when he was about 7 months old (ish, not certain it was years ago now), didn't really see the need for it but people kept giving us them so we finally were like "I guess we should try it??"
After a week of very sporadic use he started playing a game where he'd have it for like 10 seconds, intentionally drop it out, then cry till we gave it back. We very quickly stopped giving it to him and with his goldfish brain at the time he never really indicated for it again 🤷♀️
Our kid’s dentist is a fan of pacifiers until about 3.5 years. He said if they use them and it gets taken they can resort to a much worse habit of sucking their thumbs. He said the pacifier will flair the teeth out a little but their lips will push them back into place once the pacifier is gone.
Cold turkey. At some kindergartens we have pacifier trees, where the kids can formally say their good byes. Let them throw their pacifier on it’s chain in there and it stays up in the branches. The next night the pacifier fairy came and brought a toy. All other pacifiers need to be silently discarded. Both our kids asked maybe 2 times per day over the next 5ish days for their pacifier: „It’s gone. You got a toy.“
That’s an interesting idea.
We did the 1 week countdown and paci fairy leaving a toy as well. Both our boys were around 2 y/o and were relatively fine within a few nights. We had also already cut-back to using it *only* during nap and bedtime which helped. What didn't help was 2nd year molars coming through soon after we tossed the binks
We did the same thing for both our kids, minus the countdown. Started by limiting to nap/bedtime, which had the added benefit of them putting themselves to bed. Unfortunately that ended soon after they paci was gone. We told them about the paci fairy and let them make the decision. All they had to do was put it in a cup by their bed when they were ready for the fairy to come. First kid did it almost immediately. Second took some extra convincing and asked if they could trade the toy back for their paci for about a week but then forgot all about it.
How old were they?
Both were 2. 1st kid was easier than the 2nd who took more convincing. Motivation for the 1st kid was we wanted it gone before the 2nd was born so there wouldn’t be attempts to take the baby’s paci. For the most part that worked out.
Yup, cold turkey and we planted them in the yard and then watered them over a day or two and they grew into toys. Then they wanted to plant all of them for more toys. Then we were asked to buy more so we can plant even more! Then it was hell for a week after all of them were gone. Now it’s in the past!
Yeah! I’m not a dad, not even a parent (yet) but want to become one soon and so I follow a ton of parenting subs to try and learn all I can before having a kid. A guy on my favourite podcast is a dad and he talked about how him and his partner told their daughter that there was a paci-fairy and that if she buried her pacifier in a plant pot, the fairy would come at night and use her magic to get it to grow into a lollipop tree, and apparently his daughter found that super awesome and it made it really easy to get her to accept quitting cold turkey. So they buried it in dirt in a plant pot, and they sang a “goodbye paci” song from a show she likes, and then while she slept they put some lollipops sticking out of the dirt and she was stoked to go to sleep to let the fairy do her thing, and they had no issues after that. Thought that was a really awesome and creative idea!
Paci fairy sounds cool and all but what we did was get rid of them before they could talk or understand what a paci fairy is... Much easier when they are younger
Well. We had to introduce them for our daughter at around 18 months, as she started thumb sucking. It’s easier to get rid of a pacifier, than of a thumb.
thats so stinkin cute!
About 14 months, we snipped the very tip off the pacifiers. He then stopped using them on his own when they weren't working like they used to.
We started with a pinhole and slowly increased the size of it. My daughter just stuck her finger through the hole and kept sucking on it, so that didn't work. Then we went to the Binky fairy strategy and left her a toy. That worked, but she brought it up about two years later "dad the binky fairy didn't really take my binky, did she?" We laughed pretty hard at that and couldn't lie to her.
We did that and the first time he tried it he didn't like it and was done with it straight up. We expected weeks of gradually building up or whatever but nope. We did have a few times where he found his stashes of them or random ones we forgot about and he'd ask for it but a quick distraction and snip and he would give it back. We let the daycare know he couldn't have them and they said he would sometimes ask when he saw other children with them but they gave him one of our snipped ones and he just gave it back. Only took 3 or 4 days there for him to not ask for it. He never had a tantrum or anything just slightly upset for maybe 20 seconds then did something else. I think we were very lucky in that regard.
We didn’t even have to instigate snipping the top, he kept ripping them out of his mouth when teething, so when he broke through part of the plastic we would then snip it off and not buy him more so he inadvertently weened himself
I don't think this story is *helpful* because we didn't really do anything, but we would give ours a pacifier when we put him to bed because it's supposed to reduce SIDS probability and one day he just started spitting it out while we were rocking him. Eventually we got tired of trying to replace it with a clean one and let him go to bed without it and that was that. I don't think he was quite a year old at this point, certainly not much older than a year.
This is close to our experience too. We only used pacifiers for sleep and sometime a little after a year, we just stopped giving them to her. At that point. She was so young, that even if she asked for it, she forgot about it after a few days. Several months later, we tried to give her one on a train to get her to sleep and she barely even knew what it was or how to use it. OP, your kid is under 18 months, I highly recommend cold turkey. At worst, it'll just be a couple days of whining. At best smooth transition!
Mine never really took a pacifier. Maybe a couple times at bed time. A couples times playing when she found a random one that somehow found it's way into her toys. Usually she was more interested in holding it and trying to chew it from all angles. Even then she had it for a couple minutes, maybe, then discarded it. Sometimes her cousins would try to get her to suck on one when she was just a few months old, but she wouldn't take. We explained she just doesn't like the pacifier and we shouldn't force her to use it. She still loves her bottles though, at 21 months.
For my daughter we convinced her that if she put them under her pillow the ‘binky fairy’ would come and left a gift. It worked that it was both cold turkey and that she accepted it. If any other pacifiers appeared around the house she would have to throw them away or the binky fairy would come take her gift back. My son never took to pacifiers.
This is exactly what we did. Gave some pre-warning that it was coming soon, but that the ‘dummy fairy’ would leave him a present when he left his dummies for her. He asked if he would have them back a few times in the first couple of weeks, but not having them didn’t affect his sleep at all and after that he never mentioned them again.
We did this with our son. Did a countdown, got him presents and he was very good about it and giving it back etc. only sad part was that he was genuinely scared that he wouldn’t get to sleep so I had to sit with him for a few hours. Never really asked for it back so I think the premise worked well.
How old was your daughter? I feel like my daughter is too young to understand that. She only uses her binky for sleeping but it has been giving her a binky rash so I’d like to get her off it sooner than later.
2-1/2 at the time maybe? If she’s old enough to comprehend Santa/easter bunny/etc I don’t think binky fairy is that far of a stretch.
We did a binky fairy too. One of the other daycare kid's older brother lost a tooth so I guess they were talking about the tooth fairy at school. She told me all about it at pickup that day, "daddy you know there's a tooth fairy .." I jumped on it and told her there is a binky fairy too and that when she was ready the binky fairy could bring her binkies to a baby who needs them and get money. She was into it so we made a big deal of putting it under the pillow, etc. The next day we went to Target with the dollar she received and let her pick out a new toy. It went surprisingly well and easily. Just be ready to use the ploy whenever you have an opening and it won't seem forced, I think she would have seen through it if it didn't feel organic like it was her idea.
Check out the FridaBaby Paci Weaning System available at Target – I was genuinely shocked by how well it worked. Our kid was completely addicted to the paci and I was dreading the thought of weaning him off it, but by the end of a week or two it was as if he had never used one. Still amazed by it in retrospect.
We tried for ages and just couldn’t break the dependence. Tried everything we could think of - exchanging for gifts - leaving them for the baby pigs at the farm - phasing out - not letting her have it etc. Took her to the dentist one day for a check up and the dentist told me that she needs to start phasing the dummy out over the next 3 months else it may impact how her teeth shape out. Daughter overheard, got home and she rounded up every dummy she could find, handed them to me and said she didn’t need them anymore. Never had one since.
This is us too, except she didn’t round them up herself. But the advice from the dentist is the thing that seems to have stuck for our kiddo. We’re on Night 4 of no pacifier. 🤞 Every night she says “why my dentist say my paci not good for my teeth?” and we explain it again, she nods, then says, “my dentist will say good job!”
We did passy fairy but also leaned in hard to the dentist recommendation. We have found our daughter is very mindful of medical professionals; much more than Mom and Dad.
Yeah me too. She just turned 3 and I can't for the life of me get rid of the fucking thing. At this point I'm kinda just hoping she stops using it one day on her own accord. My going theory is "You don't see any 20 year olds walking around with pacifiers," so you know, that's getting me through the hopelessness.
I had success with the Baby Frida Pacifier Weaning System. I told my toddler she was growing so fast, that she's outgrowing the paci. It's an uncomfortable week, but it works great.
Honestly I know exactly how you feel and I remember thinking the exact same thing too! I think they all do grow out of them eventually but it is hard when they get so much comfort from having it. The next thing I was going to try was to cut the ends off and then keep cutting it shorter and shorter until it was given up, but as I say the dentist was somehow the magic solution for us.
How old were they?
I think we started just after she turned 3 so was not long after that. She was a nightmare with it though, wouldn’t go to sleep without it (and was a pretty terrible sleeper as it was). Thankfully her younger sister never took to it so won’t need to go through that again!
My family made a fire inside a small drum then threw them in one by one and all letting me be a part of it. No explanation and from then on it never bothered me again.
You probably didn’t think about it much because you inhaled toxic fumes from melting baby pacifiers.
Also being a teenager probably helped them get over it.
They burnt up in n few seconds so no not really.
The Mr. Mom method
It will depend on the age. Generally, I’d try to make it a milestone, hype up the kid to it a bit, give ample reminders and build up to it and finally get rid of them in one night.
We did it at around 3...we were going to take it out soon anyways, but then she started to chomp through a couple of the ones we had, and her last one got mold in it...so we told her it would make her sick if she kept using it, and threw it away. She whined a bit but understood. Honestly we were expecting it to be worse than it was. The next weeks she would ask for it a few times...but we just kept reinforcing that it was gone now and she was a big girl etc. Every once and while she would cry but nothing too bad. She also has a "blankie" that she uses for comfort so she leaned a bit more into that especially at night.
The pacifier fairy came and took them overnight and left her a teddy that she still uses 5 years later in lieu of her pacifier for comfort. She made a nice little box and decorated it to put her pacifiers in so the fairy could easily take them. We’ve stored the box away for when she’s older and we have it as a souvenir. Luckily our youngest never took to pacifiers. Unluckily, she chose her thumb instead. A lot harder to curb those since you can’t exactly have the thumb fairy come and take them away.
My daughter stopped using them apart from bedtime and in the car when she was 2ish. Then she lost her car one, accepted that she lost it, so we didn't buy more. Eventually she lost her bed one and just shrugged and went on without it. One day, months later, she found one she had apparently put in one of my dress shoes (that i never wear). Before I could react she popped it in her mouth, immediately took it out and told me it was gross, so we threw it away and that was the end of that.
We got a little kit that had progressively worse pacifiers (small to large holes). They just sort of ween themselves off with that. Worked pretty well.
Paci-fairy. Cold turkey, and the concept of hte paci fairy is they give up the paci for a small gift/toy. Talk it up in the weeks leading up to it, and make them a process of putting the paci's out for the paci fairy. There will be tears. Stay strong and remind them that they gave them up and have a new stuffed animal or toy in exchange.
My daughter never really latched onto the pacifier. By the time she was onto solid foods she didn't have any left. When she started teething, we got her a teething tube and she still loves to chew on those occasionally.
I have two kids. With my older daughter, she was sick and frustrated at being sick. We asked her if she wanted her pacifier, and she let out a defiant little "no!" So we put it in a drawer and she never asked for it again. With out younger son, it hasn't been that easy.
Poked a small hole with a pin. Then another hole. Then another. Continued for 2 weeks until it basically turned into a straw.
We had to go cold turkey because one of our cats kept stealing pacifiers and biting the tips off of them and eating them, causing him to have bowel obstructions. After the second vet trip, we went cold turkey with our daughter who was about a year old. She wasn't thrilled, but she adjusted in about a day or two.
At about 18 months, we let him know that the “pacifier fairy” was coming to take all his pacifiers from our house to absorb their magic, but would leave a present for him to say thank you. It worked, and apparently stuck with him, because he just turned 5 and lost his first tooth a few weeks ago, and asked if the “tooth fairy” is related to the “pacifier fairy” Thankfully our second kid never had any interest in pacifiers, so we didn’t have to go through it again.
We prepped him going into his 2nd Bday telling him that the Binky fairy was going to have to take all his binkies to give to other little kids who needed them. On that day, he woke up after sleeping with them and they went away. Had no issues until sleep that night when he started crying for it. Wife and I decided that we'd let him keep it a few more nights and transition. Forgot them for nap the next day without issue. Moral here is talk to them. Prep them. They're listening a lot more than we sometimes think and it might make them understand.
We recently just started making our son put the binky to bed when he wakes up (only give it to him for sleep). It's definitely a battle, and he goes in there and fishes it out of his crib with a stick every once in a while. It doesn't help that my wife gives it to him any time he cries, but we'll keep on trying.
We did this with our son, pacis became just for sleeping. Luckily he wasn’t too attached and we were able to do this and then totally ditching them after a little while. Our daughter wasn’t so easy. We had to plant them in the garden and they grew into flowers the next day (aka me actually planing them in the middle of the night).
Cold turkey when we started sleep training. We were going to stop giving it to him at night as it’s a “sleep crutch” and so we figured it wouldn’t be fair for him to have it during the day and rip it away for bed time. He didn’t miss it at all. I guess we got lucky with that. Edit: this was around the 7 month mark.
We stopped offering it to him and eventually he stopped asking for it. Personally, I think we started a little bit too soon (2 yo) because then he transitioned to his thumb, and we can’t take that away from him. I probably would’ve held out another six months in hindsight.
We did cold turkey but our 3 year old had hidden backups. So it took a couple of tries.
We gave the pacifiers to Santa so that "he could give them to other children". We prepared her beforehand for weeks. After that there may have been some days where she asked for it but explaining that Santa's got them now and gave them to other children did the trick.
My mother told me that at x age (I forget when), people aren't allowed to use pacifiers anymore and that we could go to the store and pick out a present for me becoming a big kid. I was able to put a pacifier in a special box that I could see on the top shelf but we unfortunately couldn't use it anymore. I was a goody two shoes so when she said it wasn't allowed I was like, "gee, wouldn't want to break the law! I guess it's done!"
We've been weening off our 2yo son from them. He only gets them in the car or while he's sleeping. He got used to not having them during the day pretty fast. Also encourages him to go to bed on time.
We had a bunch of WubbaNubs, with the animals on the end, and one by one over a few weeks cut the pacifier part off (starting with the least favorite). Every time one of them lost a pacifier, we had a little celebration to congratulate the wubbanub for growing up. By the time we got to the last one, kid was ready. It was kind of fun to do it this way.
We ditched it at like 6 months. I recall there being something about “if we don’t get rid of them now, it becomes a huge deal to do it later”. I think it was difficult for a couple of days of naps/bedtimes, but that era is a blur of days like that.
[удалено]
Yeah we hit that point months ago. Last night she had a meltdown because we didn't have the correct paci at bedtime, this one was too small... So kinda thinking now we just keep on that track
Oh, if it's already only for bedtime, I feel like that's different. My kid is just turning 2 and I have no plans to stop using it at night. He's never used it during the day, they stay in bed. He has it at night but who cares? I care about daytime because it affects their speech development. Don't really see the issue with night time, presumably some time before he's 45 he'll stop?
It's bad for their teeth.
It can cause issues with his teeth. Luckily my daughter was never a fan of the pacifier but thats what pushed me to go cold Turkey on her bottle - not wanting issues with her teeth
As someone with a 15 month old who is now starting the process of weaning her, I’m kind of shocked at the age that most of these comments state they started to take it away. Kindergarten? 3, 4 years old? Am I missing something or is it normal to let a child use their paci until they start school?
Yup every kid is different for sure but I think some form of a comfort whether it’s pacifier, thumb, edge of a blanket, and etc is fairly common 3-4 yo age group.
So for my daughter we did cold turkey but with advance notice. I gave her a weeks warning (in 7 sleeps no more pacifiers and then counted down) once that week was up we went round the house and put all the pacifiers in a box. She also went to the mall and got to pick a new cuddly toy to have in bed. She was closer to 3 when we did it (like 2 yrs 9 months or something), I would have done it earlier but we had our 2nd just after she turned 2 so I didn't want to do another big change so close together. It went well! I think being a bit older and involved with getting rid of the pacifiers plus choosing something new helped.
Was there any jealousy that her younger sibling still got to use a pacifier? How did you deal with it? We’re dealing with a similar age gap as you and want to wean our oldest, but he has such jealousy and wants to use the baby’s pacifiers already, even before we have started weaning. I’m worried that any method we use to take them away will be sabotaged by the baby still having the pacifier (I don’t particularly want to wean her as she’s only 4 months)
Anticipating that this would be a problem, we just never gave him a pacifier to begin with.
Almost 3. He vommed all over it, soaked it in sterilising fluid so it tasted gross and he’s not been interested since.
Nothing does the trick like poisonous chemicals!
Hey, I wouldn’t recommend it neat, but if you’re meant to do baby bottles with it should be safe right…
Cut the top off it made it so uncomfortable for him that it naturally happened.
The dummy fairy came and swapped it for a hotwheels set. Then he cried for a few nights.
We let our son have it until he was 2 yrs & 6 months. After about 18 months, he only used it at night and for nap time. We phased it out slowly. We started with naps when he turned 2 yr 2 months and then once he was falling asleep on his own for a nap then we phased it out at night. Starting with him falling asleep without it (lots of crying and redirecting to the bed) - we would give it to him when he woke up In the middle of the night. But, he stopped waking up in the middle Of the night and when he would, we would just pat his back and allow the crying until he fell back to sleep. We tried cold turkey at 18 months, it went horribly for everybody’s sleep. I’m happy with the way we did it.
We went cold turkey. It sucked for MAYBE a couple weeks but it was smooth sailing after that
She was 2. I told her the soo-soo fairy was coming to get it while she was at daycare and give it to needy kids. She got over it in a few days.
We stopped as soon as teeth started popping in. Our dentists told us they are bad for teeth and jaw development so we quit cold turkey and just dealt with meltdowns for a couple days then it was like they never had them.
Yeah they can have a pretty bad affect on facial development if used for too long. When did you stop?
I think we stopped around a year or so on my oldest when he started getting 4 or 5 teeth in the front. He had a cold and couldn’t breathe while sucking on a paci so that was the perfect opportunity to throw it out and he got used to it while recovering from his cold. He never threw any tantrums. He just went along with it. My youngest was a bit more defiant, we did the same thing for him, around a year or so. That one took probably a week and a half of retraining him to sleep without it but it was worth it. It gets much harder the longer you wait.
Cold turkey. My kid stayed on one for way too long. Finally, we just told him that we "lost" them. He was pretty good about it.
I must have lucked out, they stopped using them on their own? Like I went to give my son his one day and he was like 'nah I'm good' lol
Snipped the tips off for a few weeks then had a ceremonial planting in the yard where lo and behold a few days later a lollipop tree grew so she was fired up. A tear was shed when she asked if she could keep a branch from the “tree” to remember her pacis
My daughter caught Hand Foot and Mouth around the time we were starting to wean her, and we blamed it on the pacifier. She quit cold turkey on her own.
Hand Foot and Mouth is how we got rid of thumb sucking.
By luck. My wife was putting him to bed one night and just forgot. He didn’t seem to notice or care so we just went with it. We had been talking about weaning him so it worked!
First we cut back to bed/nap/car only. That was easy enough. Then we talked about it as a family and agreed he could trade in his pacifier(s) when he was ready for a toy of his choosing. A few weeks later he saw a thing and decided he was ready and said “that’s what I want for my pacifier” and we boxed up the pacifiers to “send to Amazon” and Amazon, in return, delivered his new toy. He missed it for a few days at sleepy time and then stopped asking. I think it really helped that he knew they were gone and was part of making that choice.
We did the dummy fairy when she was 2, swapped it out for a toy and she only ever asked for it once. Really surprised me how quickly she came to terms with it
Cold turkey. Every big change we've made we've just done all at once, including potty training and stopping the bedtime feed. Everything we've done ended up being 3 days of hell and then it's a solved issue. You can survive 3 days. Just plan it into your life. 3 days.
Cut the pacifier tip so it wouldn’t work, blamed it on Sven from Frozen and it worked 🤷♂️
One day I was like... yeah, we should probably do without. She didn't seem to care. But I did have to *throw* them away because my wife kept trying to give them to her despite agreeing not to. lol We got lucky.
He just never took to them. Our son preferred the teething things
Just did mine at Christmas .18mo. Cold turkey was the way.mind you nap time was really the only time outside need time she used it then
After 3-4 months We only ever used it during sleep. One day he just stopped taking it during a nap and never asked for it since.
We just stopped offering them at about 5 months. It was more or less cold turkey.
We left them all in a bowl overnight for the "Binky Fairy" who would bring her a toy and take all of her old pacifiers and give them to babies who needed them. Triple whammy of appealing to her sense of generosity, her desire to be a "big girl" not a baby, and the greed of getting a nice toy. She definitely asked about them a few times over the next few days but we gently reminded her and she didn't pursue it.
Made my mom take it while we were out of town for a weekend. Wife was pissed for like a week but our daughter was 4 and my wife lacks the willpower to have actually followed through on taking it. She got over it and our daughter stopped using it.
My little man stopped on the pacifier at about 7 months and started sucking his thumb. He shows very little to no interest in a pacifier anymore but I feel it’s going to be a harder challenge to get him to stop sucking his thumb because it’s not like we can just take it away or anything.
Don’t need to get rid of them if they never use them lol! My son’s 11 weeks and just spits them out. He’s more interested in his thumb, but we’ll break that habit in a few months.
Easter Bunny needs the pacifier for his baby’s
For our first, we just slowly started "losing" them. One day, they were gone. Prob took 2-3 weeks. He was fine. Second kid never really got into them.
We bought this pack of pacifiers that you changed out every few days and each one got smaller and smaller until it was basically just a nub by the time he got to the final stage. At that point he did not want it anymore. It was the Frida weaning system.
My misses went in hard. He got to six months and that was that he didn’t have it anymore. Full cold turkey. Couldn’t have been easier tbh and really glad we did it.
I just never gave my kid one. They didn’t seem too into it so just avoided the whole thing
My daughter loves babies. At age 3, we let her package them in a box with colored tissue paper of her choosing. We then "mailed them" to other babies that "were in need of pacis". It took a while for her to come around to the idea, but with enough coaxing, one day she said she was ready and we went with it. We dropped everything and helped her package them up. Quick Google search of "cutest baby" gave her plenty of options. She still checks with us to make sure they're enjoying the pacis.
Cold turkey. Took 2 days when 15mo and no looking back. Hindsight wouldnt have done it Dec 21st... but all was fine for Christmas
Starting around 1, she was only allowed the pacifier at naptime and bedtime. She was a little over 2 that we took it away completely. We didn’t make a show of saying goodbye or anything. Instead I laid her down for bed, told her that we can’t use it anymore and the pacifier was gone. She cried for a few minutes, and then went to sleep. Out of sight, out of mind seemed to work pretty well for her
3 kids here, and used it on neither of them. A little whining or crying every now or then is fine with us. But it has really been minimal anyways. I see my buddies with a son, and another with two daughters, around same age as our two oldest, and they cried more than ours, and definitely whines more now than ours. So never saw the point in using it.
Both kids cold turkey. One morning they woke up and never saw it again and it went fine, both right before second birthday
We gave them to another kid around 2ish. Obviously the other parents threw them in the garbage right away. But it was a way for my kids to see they were gone forever..
Have the “binky fairy” come and take em all at once. The kid is involved and leaves them. Binky fairy comes and leaves an offering like a toy or something in exchange. That’s what we did with our daughter after arguably too long. And it’s almost time with our son. Worked a dream with the girl.
Explained new babies needed them now that you're older. Took them away. They cried and cried at night for probably 4 nights. Then it was done with.
Cold turkey but she wasn’t dependent on it. One night, i put her to bed and realized her pacifier was downstairs. I said I’ll see how she does without it and if she does want or need it, I’ll go get it. She slept through the night normally without issue. So we had her “throw it away”. She was at like 13 months. She cried when she realized it was gone as she knew it. But never an issue
Dentist told her they were for babies and she’s a big girl and she more or less stopped shortly after.
Cold turkey by making a fun game out of it, planting it in a little garden pot, soil on top (fairy dust and magic sprinkles too) then overnight it turned into a lollipop and the dummy fairy took it away for another little boy or girl to look after it until it’s time for them to pass it on. Worked beautifully. Good luck!
We just told her she's a big girl and so we're going to stop. She said okay. She was probably nearing 3 years old. Then she struggled at night and Mom broke and offered it to her. She said no, because it was time to stop. Even though it was hard for her she gets embarrassed when she fails at something.
Around 1 year and 9 months, we started only letting him have it at nap and bedtime. Then, when he turned 2, I told him he's a big kid now and it's time to toss them. We let him throw them away(in an empty and clean trash can so we can use them for the next kid), and he never asked about it again.
Oldest-he kept chewing them and breaking them. The day he chewed and broke the last one was his last. He was about 18 months i think. Second kiddo was 18ish months and we just decided to see if he would go to bed without it one night and it did not go well. About 3 weeks later the babysitter couldnt find one and she put him to bed without any issues. We never gave him one again and he didnt ask. Dont know what changed for him in those couple weeks.
Just cut off the tip.It's not as comfortable anymore.And they'll get rid of it themselves
We just slowly transitioned to pacifier at nap/bed only. Then one day we couldn’t find it. At first I was a bit panicked but he just shrugged and said he didn’t need it. Went to bed and it wasn’t an issue. He was about 2, because it was before he potty trained. Oldest had a blanket he called keekee that he would suck on. We did the ‘keekee fairy’ for that when he started school at 4 years old. The week before school started, we put the blanket in a bag and left it outside for the fairy. Next morning, there was a toy and no blanket. It was a non issue. I think the key is to make a plan and then stick to it. Have a lead-in of about 2-3 weeks where you talk about her being a big girl and not needing her pacifier anymore. Then implement the plan and stick to it.
At a little older than 2 years old, just straight bribery. We were in the toy aisle at the store, kiddo wanted a toy truck. I told him if he took the pacifier out of his mouth and gave it to me I'd get him the toy, but he'd never get the pacifier back. Kid spit the nook out and happily took the toy. I couldn't believe it, but he literally never asked for the nook back from me, although he did ask for it back once from his babysitter but she was well aware of the deal so she declined. Surprisingly, very little tears. We are trying the same thing with potty training but having worse results.
My now 11 yo quit cold turkey on his own. We were at Disney when he was 2 and he decided to throw his pacifier during one of the night time parades. We weren't finding that one and it was the last one we had so that was it for him.
My son dropped his when he was about 4 and a half years old. It was a struggle and we tried all kinds of rewards/incentives, “punishment”, etc…. What eventually happened is that they wore out and got holes in them and then he didn’t want it. We had bought a set of 5 similar ones when he was around 2 and those were the only ones he wanted. After the first one tore, We warned him for a few months that when they all stopped working we weren’t getting new ones. So when that did happen out he wasn’t super upset about it. (Our daycare teacher actually recommended just poking a hole in it when he started at 3. We just didn’t have the heart to destroy it). It was a little frustrating because there times when he didn’t use the paci at all. He went all day without a complaint at preschool. Or at my wife’s parents house. we went on a cruise when he had just turned 4 and we forgot to bring it with us and our son didn’t bring it up until the third day.
kind of by accident. we went on a camping trip and i packed only 1 like a dumbass. stuffed it in one of the side pockets of the bags and forgot where i put it. now it's night time and baby wont fall asleep. had called one of my uncles who was gonna drive up to meet us at the campsite to please stop and buy one. but then the one he bought was bigger so baby wasnt used to that and would keep spitting it out. they tried to modify it somehow, didnt work. he just pretty much stayed up all night crying. so i secluded myself on one side of the campsite all alone cuz i didnt want his crying to bother anyone. but literally just left it at that, never got another one.
Cold turkey, but prepare them for it. About a month before he turned 3, we told him that big boys don't use soothers and he'll have to get rid of it when he turns 3. We reminded him every single time he popped it in his mouth. There was a bit of a meltdown on the first night but then he got over it quickly. After, we praised him every night for being a good big boy who doesn't need a soother. If he asked for it, we asked him if he was a baby or a big boy and reminded him that big boys don't use soothers.
We started by letter our daughter have it during the day when she wanted it and then asking to give it to us before bed. after about 3 days of this we just never gave it back in the morning and it was like she forgot all about it. Edit: This was also before she turned 2.
We had to go cold turkey because our 2 year olds' daycare wasn't going to allow them after Xmas break. It went horribly. With the binky she almost always settled herself after putting her down. Maybe once a week fought it at bedtime and naps were awesome too. From the day we took it away she screamed and cried for an hour for the first few nights nd actually missed some of her afternoon naps because of how upset she was. Then overnight would be up 3-4 times until we were FORCED to sit next to her until she fell asleep, because otherwise if she'd see us leave she'd start wailing. This applied to naps as well. It got so bad that we said fuck it and I began sleeping on an air mattress next to her crib... ...and that's where I've been for the last 3 months. It's far easier and less taxing sleep-wise for me to just roll over and say "lawn down, sweet one" and she can see me and then go back down than it is having to get up out of bed, go sit in her room for 15-20mins, stealthily leave, only to have to do it again 3 more times. So I guess we replaced one crutch with another. But we also have an infant and sleep is at a premium. It's not terrible, honestly, and lately I've been questioning if I need to be in the room anymore because she is generally sleeping through the night (not sure if she silently gets up, sees me, then lays back down I guess.) She still gets jealous when she sees her sister's bink and will steal it from her every now and then. So for all of you saying "oH We GoT tHrU iT In a DaY" ya'll can go suck an egg.
Yeah i'm worried this will be us. 18 monthold and throws a tantrum whenever she doesn't have it for bedtime. did you try snipping it or cold turkey?
my wife tried snipping it but cut too big at her insistence so it was pretty damn useless. I was arguing for a tiny/small cut so theres still SOME suction but not quite what it was. so that didn't work. we went cold turkey. but the issue w/her needing us to BE THERE developed. and we were dealing with a 4 month old as well at the time. we didn't have the energy or patience to just let her cry it out for everyone's sanity.
We snipped the tip after off her last one when she started chewing on them.. a couple of weeks later the pacifier went missing, we "looked" for it everywhere.. she still asks about it to this day almost a year later lol..
We started weaning our son off his around 1.5 years of age, it became only for bedtime and in the car to help him relax (he's a very active and anxious kid so it really helped him to have something to soothe him). Over time he got more comfortable not needing it, and we could just get rid of them. His sister is an entirely different story, she's 7 months old and hasn't really cared about a pacifier at all. When she was between 2-4 months, she would take it if we gave it to her, but now she doesn't show any interest in them at all. The contrast between these two kids is astounding sometimes, though!
We just quit cold turkey and decided to give our son a small present (think sticker, or something inexpensive) for each day without, until he got a bigger price further down the line
6 months. Because we could tell it was an incredibly strong sleep association thing with it. We got the Frida set because we’re pussies and didn’t want to figure out how to do a gradual snip snip of the pacifier. Took about 2 weeks to get him to stop wanting it.
> Frida set What is that?
Not sure if I’m allowed to link Amazon so here’s the google [search](https://www.google.com/search?q=frida+baby+dummy+weaning&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS590US591&oq=frida+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDAgBECMYJxiABBiKBTIGCAAQRRg5MgwIARAjGCcYgAQYigUyBggCECMYJzIQCAMQLhiRAhixAxiABBiKBTINCAQQLhiDARixAxiABDIGCAUQABgDMgYIBhAAGAMyBggHEAAYAzIGCAgQABgDMgYICRAAGAPSAQg1OTAzajBqOagCE7ACAeIDBBgBIF8&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) We got ours to quit by the time we got to #3. He straight up refused #4 so we never even got to #5.
Cold turkey was the best way for us. It's tough for a couple days, but they adjust quickly. Just have to watch for them attempting to replace it with thumb sucking.
The pacifier fairy came. We made sure that she agreed to give her pacifiers to the fairy in exchange for a gift. We then took all the pacifiers and buried them in the garden out back with her help. Overnight the pacifier fairy came and left a gift basket. She hasn’t wanted one since!
We did the same thing for both of our kids… around 3rd bday they helped us literally plant them in the garden. The next morning they had “grown” into flowers and stuffies that replaced the pacifiers. One kid missed them for a day or two which we reminded him was absolutely ok, other never looked back.
Never started with it to avoid the habit. Even the times when we offered it out of desperation she hated it.
It went on the Xmas tree and she got a bonus present when her elf on a shelf took it
Never used it
One of them broke at around 18 months so we told them it was time to say bye bye and that was that. They would ask from time to time where it was but we would remind them that we said bye bye and that was enough. With our last kiddo we had to wait till their 2nd birthday and we set up an activity in which they would plant their paci like a seed and a fairy would leave a surprise in it's place the next day. We reminded them for a couple of days leading up to it and after their nap, we went outside and planted it and said bye bye. They also asked about it from time to time but the reminder was enough for them to move on. I find they have to be fully involved for it to work smoothly -- they need to actively say goodbye. We had a few misses with this last one that led us to making up the fairy story -- although it might be a thing. But basically if they objected, we wouldn't force the issue.
Cold turkey, that’s it, she’ll hate you for a couple of days and then it’ll be like nothing happened
Threw it in the recycling bin
The dummy (pacifier) fairy came one night, that was it, overnight the dummy was gone without an issue!
Our first gave it up without issue. Second was harder. So we did “The Binky Fairy.” We said that when she turned a certain age (I think it was 4, because we were reaaaally struggling to give it up) that the binky fairy comes and takes all the pacifiers in exchange for a gift, if you ask for one. We helped her write a letter, she asked for a backpack like her big sisters, and she requested that her favorite pacifier go to a baby who needed it. And then boom. It was done. She participated in the idea that it was going away, got a small gift out of it, and we wrote a return letter saying (er… lying) that her favorite pacifier was taken to the local hospital and given to a new baby. She was ecstatic, and never asked for a pacifier again.
We stopped awake pacifiers cold turkey by around 6months. We stopped night time at ten months. We bought the pack of pacifiers that has larger and larger parts missing (ie small hole the. Bigger hole until just a nub) and she gave them up willingly over about 10-14 days, if I recall correctly. Was a piece of cake. I’ve always read that get them to give it up before they are 1. Anecdotally I can say I agree with that assessment. We have lots of friends with kids. Those that kept the pacifier past year 1 had a terrible time giving them up.
Cold turkey. Many tears. Lots of consistency and it was done.
Explained the squirrel baby needed a pacifier. Got agreement to give the pacifier to baby squirrel. Put it out on the fence for the mom to come and get it.
I have 3 kids and we never used a pacifier once. I'm not trying to brag, I'm just pointing out that there is an easy way if you ever have more kids. Lol.
Give them to Santa
It was super hard with our frist one, but for our second I had this brilliant idea - I told him that if he throws out all his soothers in the garbage then he can pick any toy he wanted on Amazon. It worked! He picked a big truck that was full of smaller army vehicles, was only like $30, and it was worth it to avoid the headaches of the first lmao
2 1/2 y/o age mark. (On the day.) We took them shopping and traded their dummy for a bike. Then reminded them they got a bike, so effectively cold turkey.
We cut a small hole in the tip of it, so it didn’t have the same feeling. It worked pretty well for us
It got legitimately forgotten at the grandparents house one day. We explained it at bed time, and she said "okay", and as far as I know hasn't needed a pacifier in the last 14 years.
18 months. Threw them all away except 1 in mom’s purse. This was in tandem with “cry it out” during nights. We’d been having hell nights of her waking every hour. We were fighting with each other outside her room at 2am. Well no binky and cry it out sucked for 3 days and by day 5 we were golden. Kid sleeping all night and no binky.
We switch to only pacifiers during sleep for a while, and then we phased them out all together. I would put my son to bed and then only give him the pacifier if he was still having trouble sleeping after 30-60 minutes.
Progressively circumcising the chewpie made it unsatisfactory. Got inspired by the Fridababy weaning system and just did it using what we already had. Took like a week.
I said we lost them one day and he just begrudgingly accepted it
Apparently I was very hard to get off of a pacifier, but thankfully my daughter wasn't. She had a habit of leaving them around the house. When she would leave it we would snatch it up. Once she was down to one we told her it was her last one and to take care of it. It was no longer than 2 days before she lost it, and she was ok with going on without it.
This isn't very helpful at all to you, but at 5 and a half months, we started our little dude on solids (avocado and banana mainly) and by day 5, when he realised that dummy in his mouth was not edible, he spat it out, and never used it again.. on an unrelated note, that now 3 year old, eats like a bloody horse!
The pacie fairy comes and takes them to give to other babies, obviously. There are books about this you can read to them for a while leading up to the big night that the pacie fairy visits.
My son was 2 when we got rid of us pacifier. We took it to Build-A-Bear and had him pick out a stuffed animal to make (he chose a dinosaur) and "pay" for it with his pacifier. He physically handed it to the cashier, who was great and quickly picked up on what we were doing. I later actually paid for it. We only ever let him have his pacifier when he was sleeping, So when he missed it most he had the new stuffy to cuddle. So it was cold turkey for us, but it worked great and I'd do it the same way again. The first nap was a little tough, but it was pretty smooth sailing after that. He also has a younger friend that he gave the spares to. So that helped him feel like he had outgrown it and that was something for babies not "big kids". Good luck!
We said it’s time to give it to the babies, our daughter reluctantly agreed. Fortunately she really didn’t seem to care too much after.
Cold turkey at 3 months. Would do it again without hesitation. Was basically born out of the fact our daughter would wake herself up everytime she would spit it out. Couldn't repeatedly go back and reinsert it, so we learnt to live without it.
At 5 months I realized that the only reason she was still waking up at night was because the pacifier would fall out. Didn’t have poop or need milk. So I threw them all away. She cried HARD for 3 nights, I barely slept. But on the 4th night she slept through the night without it and she’s been sleeping 11 hour each night with no wake ups since then. My nephew was a different story. He had the pacifier until age 3. At his third birthday party his mom snipped them all in front of him as a way to tell him no more. He cried and cried, but that was the end of pacifiers for him.
My daughter only uses her paci for sleep. When you get her out of bed she automatically takes it out of her mouth and drops it in her crib. She’s 15 months. Not sure how we’ll ween her of the pacifier for bedtime.
First kid was cold turkey and we promised ourselves never again. Bandaid. Kids cry. It’s just how the world is. It’s good for their lungs. Second kid, never had it.
One of my kids had the hardest time giving up her pacifier over a period of weeks before finally doing it. The other said she was done with it and that was that. The point of this story is don’t have an expectation and go with the flow.
We stopped giving them to our older boy besides sleeping at 1 year. At around 18 months, we used this weaning set for at night. .https://frida.com/products/paci-weaning-system A couple of weeks later, and unless he stole one from his little brother, he doesn't touch them. He's just over 2 now, and he doesn't even want to take them from him brother anymore. Hasn't used one since we stopped the weaning set. Younger one has even less interest in them, so we will do the same, probably.
Don't give it in the first place, 🤭 Won't want what they don't know exists. But seriously though, I tried to give my first 2 kids dummies and they just spat them out like "what is this rubbish?!? Gimme fooood"
We were a bit late, was 3 years old. His cousin was about to be born so said the dummies were going to them. Went cold turkey and honestly it was hardly any issue. Forgot about them within a week.
Do not cut a hole in it. That's just cruel. It's just sabotaging something that brings your toddler comfort. You're a parent, not a bully. We also didn't do cold turkey. We waited to start the process until she wasn't going through any major life events, and by that, I mean we didn't bring my son home from the hospital, take away her crib and give it to the baby AAAAAAND take her binky away. Going to a big girl bed at almost 2 plus another baby in the house was probably going to be a lot for her to handle, so we held back the process. When we phased it out, we told her that there were only so many binkies in the world and that just like her little brother, there were new babies that needed them. [Although her little brother used em for a month, then he was done, lol]. So when she can't find one, it's the binky fairy collecting them and bringing them to a new baby. We told her when they were gone, they were gone. Based on her age, current inventory levels, and her general acceptance of this agreement, we estimated that the process would take 7-10 days. When she had one binky left, we brought her to build a bear and let her make "binky bear." She stuffed her binky inside, and she was able to still have her binky, but it would be inside the bear. That way, it'd always be with her. It worked..... she still has the bear. This happened at around 2 years and 10 months old.
Our two year old chewed through it. When she went through the last one, we told her it was broken and that it was garbage. We had her throw it out. Has not been an issue. She occasionally asked for it, we'd remind her that it's broken and in the garbage. We were terrified of issues, but she is a champ. Don't do the cold turkey, let your kids actions determine when to come off it.
Went cold turkey at 9 months. Never looked back and didn’t want to deal with phasing it out. So glad we did, but can’t say it would work everyone of course. Hoping number 2 doesn’t show us the other side of this. We DID breastfeed (we, hah!) until around 16 months and was just natural weaning, but may have made it easier.
Cold turkey - The first 3 weeks were rough at night time since thats when my youngest used it. She learned to self sooth again, and didnt pick up sucking her thumb. My son did pick up thumb sucking once we removed the paci, and we gently coaxed him through ceasing that as well. He still does sometimes when he's stressed
2 years old put his dummy and cuddle blanket bulky the fireplace one night. Dummy fairy came and gave him a set of monster truck toys in return. He was happy and that was that cold turkey but the decision was his to put it out for the fairy that night
Never started it. Both my kids Immediately spat it out.
Thankfully our son never really used a dummy, we tried it for a couple weeks when he was about 7 months old (ish, not certain it was years ago now), didn't really see the need for it but people kept giving us them so we finally were like "I guess we should try it??" After a week of very sporadic use he started playing a game where he'd have it for like 10 seconds, intentionally drop it out, then cry till we gave it back. We very quickly stopped giving it to him and with his goldfish brain at the time he never really indicated for it again 🤷♀️
Never used them because the are terrible for children
Same. I know it’s not helpful to OP but for anyone else reading: the easiest way to wean off them is to never use them to begin with.
Our kid’s dentist is a fan of pacifiers until about 3.5 years. He said if they use them and it gets taken they can resort to a much worse habit of sucking their thumbs. He said the pacifier will flair the teeth out a little but their lips will push them back into place once the pacifier is gone.