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We took the muter away...
aka the pacifier.
Taylor went to the dentist yesterday and everything looks great except the pacifier was starting to affect her pallet. DH and I had toyed with taking it away this week, since I'm on vacation. We decided to wait to see if she would wean herself before age 2.
Then I got the news at the dentist. Hygenist said to switch to a smaller size (like 3-6m size) but that I didnt want to invest more money into pacifiers for just a few more months.
We are going cold turkey and it's painful! This is night #2 where she is screaming and crying and carrying on. Last night it was a good half hour, tonight it's been about 15 minutes so far. Naptime today was horrible. An hour and half of crying, talking, playing etc before she slept for 2 hours. Ugh. I know it will get better but I'm missing how easy it usually is to get her to bed.
Re: We took the muter away...
I'm totally with you right now! It's day 6 for us without the pacifier. And I'm exhausted.
I wanted to have it gone before baby #2...because I feared if baby #2 is interested in the pacifier, it will be very very hard to wean Adrian. I am especially motivated since in my line of work I see the worst case scenarios with doing therapy forever for stubborn speech issues and swallowing issues caused by the pacifier (nevermind the orthodontist needs too) that I really didn't want to wait forever in case all that happened to Adrian. He's been weaned to crib only since 6 months. It's taking this final leap that has been so hard for me to commit to. But I did it.
And I miss the easy-put down with a pacifier and peacefully fall asleep whenever- times too.
What I did was snip a slit in the end 1/8 of an inch. Which made Adrian MAD. And from that point forward, he refused to put in in his mouth and would hold it and cry for me to fix it. Since I can't do cry it out, it's been a lot of consoling and gradually helping him be more independent through this step by step plan I've got going on (I'm such a therapist). I feel like we went back at square one with trying to get him to sleep independently. Tonight was the very first night that he fell asleep by himself completely...without crying, clinging to me or needing me to "be right back". Phew! My problem now is he wakes up MAD at 5am. Hopefully I can ease him into not being so mad at 5am and to fall asleep at naptime easier.
Overall, I'm SO glad I took the plunge. I know the worst is over and it's getting better everyday. I don't like to make him mad, but I don't want to spend years of therapy fixing something that I caused by not taking it away...nor to I want to spend oodles on dental work caused from the pacifier. I know it's for the best for him. But wow, he has a determined personality...like his mama.
Felix never really took one, but he does love his little lovey blanket. He chews on them when he's teething and hugs and cuddles them all the time. Could you replace the pacifier with one of those? The ones we have are:
http://www.amazon.com/Angel-Dear-Blankie-Blue-Elephant/dp/B000TFMJEG
I did a gradual process with Ben. Right around 2 he started being obsessed with it because he had been sick and that was comforting to him. It was hard for the first few days, but after about a week it was gone and it was kind of on his terms since he was able to make some decisions to not use it.
http://bye-bye-binky.com/
T has Bunny that she is pretty attached to. I think that is helping with us taking the muter away because she still has something to latch on too.
Meg, be careful with the thumb sucking (not sure if she is still doing it). I sucked my fingers until I was 11!!
Oh man...thumb sucking is worse I think...because you can't take it away and it does the same stuff a pacifier does to speech, swallow and teeth. I sucked mine until I was 8 and had major dental issues from it. I was afraid Adrian would switch to the thumb, but he hasn't. This morning he was only mad for 5 minutes, which is progress! I've been trying to get him to latch to something else...but he throws everything. He seems to be starting to like to clutch this Haba teether...I think he likes the ring like the pacifier was, which is good because we already have two. I'm so glad it's getting better finally. It's been a rough week.
http://www.amazon.com/Haba-1121-Kringelring-Clutching-toy/dp/B0002HYCMI/ref=sr_1_1?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1325173312&sr=1-1
We took the paci around a year, and a couple months later, he began sucking his thumb! Thumb sucking is definitely the harder of the two, because you can't take it away. I'm leaving it be for now, and hoping it goes on its own, but it makes me nervous because I don't know how we'll deal with it if it doesn't stop on it's own!