Pacifiers and 15 Month Old

I agree with making rules that the binky is for bed time and nap time. We got a cute box to put on the dresser by her bed, we called it the binky box. When she went to bed she put it in her bed and picked which one was going to bed. When she woke up in the morning she put it back in the box. When my daughter turned 2 a friend convinced her to trade the binky box for a present. She did it. I was kind of displeased that a friend came to my house and did this, but my daughter did not seem to care. On a side note. Everyone encouraged me to have my oldest daughter potty trained before the baby came and my oldesdt daughter rebelled against using the potty with a new baby in the house. She got attention if she wet herself, and I would have to put the baby down and care for her. You may want to keep the binky until after the new baby comes for comfort. Just as someone else said they would cut it and blame the pet, be careful not to blame the baby for taking the binky. Good Luck and do not worry to much. They will get rid of it when you are ready to push for it.

Boy do I understand where you're coming from!! My son was OBSESSED with his pacifier!! I thought weening him would be the hardest thing I ever had to go through!! But, we did it in VERY gradual steps and he did really well. When he was 16months old we made a rule that the pacifier wasn't allowed to leave the house. We gave it a few weeks for him to be comfortable with that and then we told him he was only allowed to have his pacifier "in bed". So, for about two weeks when he would get really upset about something... he would cry for his pacifier and I would tell him he could have it if he went in his crib and he would. About twice a day he would go in his crib for about 2-3minutes to get a "pacifier" fix. Then he would call me and be all done and we would leave the pacifiers in the crib. Then after doing that for 2 weeks we made an only at nap time and bed time rule. That went on until he was 22 months... we just about a week ago took away the pacifier at nap times and he only has it at bedtime now. I have to tell you... He did A LOT better than I thought! He surprised me!! I thought it would be hours of crying for the pacifier and days, possibly weeks of me feeling like I was torturing him and it wasn't!! I think he was young enough to know it was happening but, not old enough to feel like he was being punished. GOOD LUCK!

My daughter just turned 3 and she still uses her binky. It's comfort for her. I thought about taking it from her but figued that if it comforts her then there was not need to. I don't let her take it outside and it stays inside and is really used for her to take a nap or bed with. My dr said that the binky was bad because of the germs that it carries. I think that you should continue to let him use it and he is to young right now that he would not understand why. I would not suggest saying that a pet chewed it up because that might make your little upset everytime it looked at your pet.

Of course your going to hear.. your to big for a binky, etc. I just tell whom ever that she likes it and were not ready to take it from her. That usually makes them stop saying things.

Good luck.

We got our daughter off of them by telling her the dog chewed them up.

My 5 yr. old loved his paci, but laughs at it now. Relax.
You have a baby coming soon, he may still want his little security for a bit. He's still a little guy too. When my little one could understand (somewhere around age 2), we just hid them all, and would then "find" them at bedtime, when you are most vulnerable and really need it, then eventually he was too engrossed in his toys, and just sort of forgot. My 12 yr old sucked his thumb (which is worse b/c you can't get rid of it) till he was almost 6. They just outgrow things. As he grows, and understands, you will point out that he is the big boy, big brother, and he will actually want to give it up on his own. Anyways thats what worked for me. But I'd enjoy your new baby with him and let him suck away for a little bit, it's all ok!

For me personally, I choose not to fight that battle until we are approaching the 2nd birthday. I started at 18 mos. by only allowing the paci at bedtime (this wasn't a huge fight, she actually was busy enough during the day that she didn't notice it was gone), and once she turned two I made a big deal about how she was a big girl now because she was two. She gets to wear pull ups and play with certain toys that she couldn't play with before. And of course, paci's are for babies not big girls. So, no more paci. She was pretty ticked off about it, but after a few weeks of screaming at bed time she got over it. Good luck! Things like this are never easy.

My daughter nver really took a pacifier, I had one on a little silver clip w/ ribbon, and she used to hold the nipple part in her fist, and chew the rubber handle part - kind of like a teething ring. She just lost interest in it, really really young and that was that. But, on Jon & Kate + 8, Kate got all 6 of her younger kids to give up their pacifiers at the same time. If I remember correctly, it was on their 2nd birthday. The technique that she used, was to talk about it all the time for weeks preceeding the event, and told them that their new baby cousin (her sister was expecting) NEEDED the pacifiers, and that pacifiers are for babies etc..... Turning 2 they were "big kids" and on the morning of, they all gathered their respective pacifiers and tossed them into the zip lock bag to be "given" to the new baby. During the interview later - Kate even said how easily it went, and that she couldn't believe that out of all 6 of them, they all just gave it up cold turkey on "D - Day".
Hope it helps! Good luck.

My daughter loved her pacifier. But I preferred it to a finger as they can get rid of a pacifier, but not a finger. So I let me daughter decide when she was ready to throw it in the garbage can. We started with weaning her from day times and for comfort. Then when she was between 3 and 4 she decided to throw them away. I did offer her a side bribe which was a blow up pool, but that was my choice to convince her and make it her decision. I am so big on it being her decision because I didn't want her to start sucking her finger. My pacifier was taken away because my mom was so afraid of me being too old with a pacifier and I started to suck my finger, and did so until I was in 8th grade! So I am a big advocate of the child agreeing with it. Also when my daughter decided, we never went back, and she did great, and enjoyed her pool. It always gave her something to look forward to the next day to get through the night.

Good Luck

I've heard of people poking holes in them so that they're less fun to suck on and the child loses interest. I don't think 15 months is too old for a binky (I just saw a four+ year old with one yesterday) but maybe breaking the habit now is best. Can you convince him to use it just during naps and bedtime or is he a total binky-aholic?

Close to age 2 my son fell and actually knocked his 4 front teeth out of socket. (totally scary!) So after the mad rush to the dentist, everything was fixed and ended up fine, but the dentist told him "no more Binky!" He also had a stuffed monkey whos tail he would chew on. The dentist also said no to that. Because it came from the doctor, that was it. I think they suggest taking them to the dentist at around 2 anyway. Maybe you could schedule a trip and have the "Doctor" tell him? You have several more months before the age 2 mark, so maybe this suggestion could be a last resort, or extra help, if the other weaning methods don't work.

You have a lot of great responses and I suggest you follow the slow weanning method since he is 15months old. I will just tell you what I did. My son turned 2 1/2 and moved to a big boy bed. That same weekend we went to Sea World and I had been telling him that since he is now in a big boy bed we should give his "plugger" to the baby dolphins before we leave Orlando. Well, since he only used his pacifier (aka:plugger) for bed, when we got home I told him I left it with the baby dolphins and he seemed to be okay with that. He didn't cry as as far as I remember, but he asked about when he would get it back. I would say when the dolphins grew up! Good luck!

my son was the same way. we finally got rid of the binky a few months before he turned 3. (i wish i had done it sooner, because he became very sttached to it, and no nstory of a binky fairy, etc. would worked) i cut the tip of the binky before he would wake up in a.m and tell him your getting to big for the binky, it broke because you are to big to use it. i did this to about 3 binkies ( hid the rest, just incase) he would still ak for it, but he didn't give me a hard time about it, i'd just say your to big, remember. althoug my son was older and could understand what i was saying, i heard this works well at all ages, cutting the tip. give it a try, and good luck!

My 19 month old was the same way, but it seems like she's now going longer stretches without it. I have rules with it like we don't take it outside to play. She puts it by the door when we go outside. It really helps when she's whiny and irritated and personally I believe 15 mo is too young. Why take away their comfort? i'm gonna try at 2 to start weaning. The dr said it was fine.

My son was very attached but only used it once he was 2 for naps and bedtime. I loved it too because it calmed him when he was overtired. So, I talked about giving it to the little babies since he was a big boy etc. but never took the final step. Then I got lucky one morning when he was sitting on the potty after waking up and it accidentally fell in the potty. I decided to use this natural occurrence to say goodbye forever. I was very worried as we were going on a trip that night, but it wasn't bad (although I have to admit - I did buy a backup just in case I couldn't take it!!)

The falling into the potty incident has worked well too because now if he takes a toy in to go potty, I tell him "Remember, if it falls in the potty it's gone forever!!" Good luck!

I will tell you that a pedi dentist will tell you to get rid of it sooner than later -due to palate issues. My son was 2 years 7 months and visited the dentist at 3 - no issues.

It is tough to decide when and how. I said 18 months was our cut off and we went cold turkey. They only got them at nap/bedtime. Two days ago, I threw them out and never looked back. They cry for 10 minutes and then go to sleep. I made sure they had their favorite cuddle buddy to sleep with. I thought it would be worse but it really hasn't been. Good luck and congrats on #2.

My second son had his binky forever (I don't dare say how old). Finally he said "I think I'm ready now" and we chose a night for the binky fairy to come and get it. Of course he wanted to change his mind, but the binky fairy came that night and poof it was gone.

We had one night of crying (well, about 1/2 hour, really) and that was it. And I thought it would be awful because he was so attached to it.

And in hindsight though it was easy to do, I am still glad he had it at those times when he needed to calm himself down (which was a lot ;>).

The bottom line is, do what's right for you and your son, not what other people tell you to do or what you're afraid people will think. As at least one other mom said, have a ready made response like "it makes him happy right now, I'm sure he won't need it forever, but for now he does". It's funny how freely people criticize when it's none of their business - complete strangers would say he was too old for it (and that's when he little!)

My dentist said the only time it would be physically bad for him is if he started getting his permanent teeth in (and that's old!).

Good luck!

I told my son his was lost - at about 15 months... He was upset but it turned out that he took it much easier than I thought he would. Initially we stopped because it was getting too hard to go anywhere without the binky. I mean we'd literally, search the whole house for an hour trying to find it for fear of not having it when needed! I even had 'back ups'... it just got to be too much. So one day I just told him it was lost. he cried when I put him down for a nap but to my relief he finally went to sleep. The next day or two were rough at bedtimes and naptimes but same thing, I just told him it was lost and we didn't have it anymore. In fact, I even encouraged him (after I found them all and threw them away) to participate in looking for them (for distraction and involvement) and when he couldn't find it either, he accepted that we didn't have it. After about 3 days, he was able to go to sleep without it, or asking about it or crying for it. Interestingly, about 3 weeks later we were taking a trip on an airplane and I panicked worrried that he would cry on the plane or get stuffy ears so I bought one and stuck it in his diaper bag. He never asked for it (hadn't been on his mind since day 3 afterward) but I offerred it at takeoff. He just looked at it and dropped it. I rinsed it off and gave it back to him and he tried it and threw it down again. Clearly, he was over it. Still worried about the flight, I was relieved to know he truly was 'over' the binky even though mommy was a little not - oftentimes is the case in the growing up moments of our children (wait til kindergarten starts! LOL!) Anyway, whatever you do, good luck with it. My own personal opinion is the earlier the better, later is more difficult. My other child was a thumb sucker and it was so difficult to get her to stop because you can't take that away... She finally stopped at the beginning of kindergarten on her own but her teeth were somewhat affected by the push of the thumb. IMHO...

Sincerely,
S.