Ditching the Pacifier

[brigid]

Nikola uses a pacifier, but only when he’s sleeping (or really sick and miserable). The transition from all the time to just in bed was pretty easy. We gathered up all the pacifiers, put them in the bedroom out of his reach, and told him that pacifiers were only for bed time. Was he sleepy? He can only have one when he’s sleepy. For a while at first he’d sleep with one in his mouth and one in each fist JUST IN CASE but now he just sleeps with the one. We leave them within his reach, and if he gets sleepy he’ll go into the bedroom and get one and walk around sucking on it and being chill. Part of his going-to-sleep ritual involves getting his pacifier. When he’s done sleeping, part of the “I’m really awake” ritual is handing the pacifier to whoever is with him. (or throwing it across the room, if he’s in a pet.)

He’s almost two– he’ll be two in March– and his teeth are really crooked. This isn’t a surprise because my teeth were really crooked, and after over ten years of braces, are still KIND OF crooked. I have very large teeth, a small mouth, and supernumerary teeth. Nesko had braces, too, but only for a year or two. So we were very prepared for Niko to have orthodontic problems. But even with his limited use of the pacifier, I’m starting to worry that the sucking is contributing to his tooth problems.

Then there’s the fact that when he’s asleep and the pacifier falls out of his mouth and he wakes up and it’s gone, he has a hard time resettling himself unless he can find it. Since it’s often tangled up in covers, between the head of the bed and the wall, otherwise hard to get to, what usually happens is he wakes all the way and starts crying and needs help finding the pacifier. This is a sleep disruption for ALL of us (we share a bed), and although we started using the pacifier to help him transition to sleep and learn to self sooth (he was a GREAT sleeper for a LONG time), I think it’s now hindering him from developing good sleep habits.

I was originally going to wait until he was potty trained to dump the pacifier, but he is almost 2 and shows NO interest or inclination where the toilet is concerned.

One of the techniques I’ve heard about involves talking about the pacifier fairy, or giving the pacifiers to babies who need them, etc. I don’t think he’s old enough to understand that, and I don’t think he has the empathy to care about another baby (he is a toddler, after all), unless we talked about a specific baby we know. Then there’s the “trade in the pacifier for an awesome toy” strategy but again, I don’t think he has the brain power for that due to his age.

So. Any suggestions?

What have you done? What have people you know done? What have you read/heard about?

Give my ANY suggestion, no matter how obvious you think it is.

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