pacifiers - when did you wean

DD loves her paci. We only give it to her in her crib and she knows this. It definitely helps her get back to sleep and to sleep every night. It's her soother. She's only 14 months old -- I'm thinking in advance, but I'm thinking 2 years old is a good time to wean her from it? Any suggestions.......thoughts on this topic?

 

Hi ... I just got rid of binkies about a month ago. We would have done it a little bit earlier, but I was pregnant, and didn't want to deal with the additional stress while being pregnant.

It was STRESS FREE, believe it or not.

I was giving birth to my sister's twins, so we made a big deal about gathering up all the binkies in our house, and bringing them to my sister to give to her babies. I kept saying how Jake and Hailey were big kids now and didn't need binkies, while the new babies needed them! We prepped them by talking about it for a month or so.

Then after the babies were born, we went up there and had Jake and Hailey give the binkies to the babies. Then my sister had gifts from the babies to Jake and Hailey. She got Jake a ton of CARS figures and Hailey some princess stuff. I let them bring them in their cribs and sleep with them. Let me tell you, they mentioned the binkies ONCE, and all they said was "We have no more binkies. We are too big".

If I knew it was going to go that smoothly, I would have done it much earlier! Good luck with whatever you decide!

 

Naomi and Luke have been my only paci children so far (Eleanor had one but gave it up herself at 7 months, Ethan still has his).
Like you we only allowed them to be used for sleeping from around 14 months. They decided to give them up on their own when they were 2 years 10 months. What happened was one night N couldn't find the paci she wanted (they had different styles/colours) and decided she would rather have none than use a different one. After a couple of days of her not using one their mum said to Luke "Naomi is not using a dummy anymore. Do you want to stop using yours too?" He said yes and that was it. There were no tears or adjustment or anything, it was the easiest transition ever.
As long as the pacifier is not causing any tooth or lanugage problems (unlikely if it's only used for sleeping) I see no reason to take it away before the child is ready to give it up.

 

I'm really pleased to hear those two stories... ours are very much still attached to them at 16.5 months for sleeping. DD actually has it in most nights all night long... DS usually spits his out after he's asleep. I was hoping I didn't need to stress about it... and I think I'll wait to deal with it a little later. hopefully it goes as smoothly as both of your experiences.

 

What? They can't take their pacifiers to kindergarten?? :laughing: We were doing really well with just having them for naps and bedtime and then.....I went back to teaching when they were 19.5 months old and they were having such a hard time adjusting to being at the sitter's house instead of home with me that I really relaxed on when they could have their pacis. Soooo, we're a long time from completely getting rid of them.

My dentist said by 2 is ideal. My ped said by 3. I'm not going to make it a huge issue - and hopefully, like many other things, they'll gradually outgrow sometime between the ages of 2-3 years.

 

A second this response...not stressing, and I'll worry about it much later

 

2 years old is going to be the day the dummies go!

 

We got rid of Maceys right at 12 months and then she turned into a thumb sucker! I think most pedi's recommend getting rid of them by 18 months for orthodontic reasons but I could be wrong!

 

one reason I was kinda stressing was that our pedi told us to get rid of them by 9 months... but I feared the thumb sucking issue... so I haven't gotten rid of them yet! I'm glad to hear other dentists/pedis are more liberal with 2 or 3 years of age!

 

My oldest got rid of hers a few weeks after she turned 2. We just cut the ends of them making them "broken". When it was broken it got thrown away. When all of them were gone, they were all gone. Easy deal.

Our pedi has already mentioned weaning Mallory from her binky because she has really bad palate issues. But the issues are related to her wearing the helmet to reshape her head AND using a binky 24/7 during the helmet time. Her mouth formed around her binky while her head was reshaping. So weaning from the binky will not fix that at this point. We'll just have to get expanders when she is older. So anyway, Samantha and Mallory will have theirs to sleep until they are 2, like DD. I plan on cutting the ends again.

 

We have not weaned yet. Both have them at night, although DS is more hooked. I decided before they were even born that pacis were just not a fight I was going to have. Our pedi said she wouldn't worry about it until 2 at least. I may try to wean at 2, but I don't really care if DS has a paci at night until 3+. I don't know why this one doesn't bother me (I had them off bottles at 12 months, for example), but it doesn't. I would feel differently maybe if it was during the day too, but it's not.