No More Pacifier!

Image Source: Baby Envy Boutique

All four of our girls have used a pacifier. It may have to do with the fear I had of any of them ending up like my cousin. I haven't seen or talked to him in years but the last time I did he was about 25 years old, married and STILL sucking his thumb. His family spent many years and even more dollars trying to break him of this habit but nothing worked. The dentist even put a metal plate with spikes on it on the roof of his mouth to prick his finger if he stuck it in there. My cousin took a butter knife and bent back the spikes so he could put his thumb in his mouth without getting poked, this was in high school. I would rather have a kid using a pacifier for too long than an adult child who still sucks his thumb!

LA was pretty old when we got her off the pacifier. We tried a few times but she would always steal GM's pacifier, since GM is only 16 months younger than LA. We realized that in order to get LA off the pacifier we had to do GM too. We made a box, decorated it with markers and stickers and put all the pacifiers we could find into the box and told the girls we were going to give them to some other little girls that needed them more. It worked a lot better than our previous attempts to just take them away. It actually turned out to be fairly easy once we did both girls at the same time. I can't remember exactly what we did with AG, but I'm sure it was something similar to what worked with LA and GM. AG was obviously easy, since I don't remember much about getting her off the pacifier.

Rob and I have been talking about getting CV off of her pacifier, or "pie-pie" as she calls it, for about a month now. She has been very attached to her "pie-pie" and would freak out if she didn't have it EVERY minute of the day. We would try to hide it during the day so she could at least talk to everyone without that thing hanging out of her mouth, but she'd usually start whining for it and we'd give in, just to get her to quiet down! She was definitely in full on Maggie Simpson mode with that sucker.

We planned to do something similar for CV since she was so much in love with her "pie-pie". We didn't get the chance though because CV lost her "pie-pie" and we couldn't find it, AT ALL! It is obviously somewhere in this tiny RV but we still haven't found it and it's been four days! The first night was rough, she cried and cried and cried. She kept looking under her pillow to find it and she'd wake up in the middle of the night and say "Where pie mommy? Where pie?" I wanted to find it so bad for her, she was so sad. But, I didn't find it so we just stuck with her giving it up. The next day was just as bad, she refused to take a nap, AT ALL, and she stayed awake until after 11:00 PM!! She cried for her "pie" again for awhile but I asked her if she wanted me to tell her a bedtime story and she became really excited. I had to tell her a story FIVE times, but she eventually went to sleep. She only woke up once to look under her pillow for the pacifier. After making it through the first two rough nights the rest of the days and nights have been fairly easy. She did take a nap on the third day, AG read to her until she fell asleep. At night I had to tell her a story many times but she slept quietly throughout the night. I am so glad she is forgetting about her "pie-pie"!!!