The curse of the pacifier, or not!

So the day was finally here, my 2 soon to be 3 year old daughter were going to do the dread full separation from her pacifier. May I also add it was not by choice she was departing from her precious plug. About 2 weeks ago we discovered a big tear in her silicon pacifier, probably from her continuously biting it. I refused to go and purchase her a new pacifier since I felt that this separation was long over do. After a long explanation to my daughter as to why she no longer could use her damaged pacifier, and how she was a big girl now, and not to mention Dora the Explorer does not use a pacifier (her favorite TV show), she finally agreed to throw away her broken pacifier. She actually returned to her bedroom with a smile on her face and told me “I’m a big girl now Mommy, I don’t need a map”, map is what she calls her pacifier. I left her room thinking to myself “Hey that went 10 times better than I could have ever imagine”, well I was in for a rude awakening. For the next 2 weeks our household was more than just sleep deprived, we were at our wits ends. My “big girl”, non-pacifier using daughter would wake up every 30-45 minutes crying asking for her map, which in turn would wake up her little brother, and the madness was in full spin. After 2 weeks of no sleep, and now having to re-train my youngest child to sleep in his own bed, I ask myself the question was all this madness worth letting my daughter start using the pacifier in the first place? It is not like they used the pacifier while they were in the womb; we are the ones who start forcing the pacifier on them as soon as they exit the womb.

Some research show that introducing a pacifier could interfere with breastfeeding. Other research shows that using a pacifier helps prevent SIDS, but you should wait to introduce the pacifier until your baby is 1 month old to prevent interfering with breastfeeding.

Maybe the key to the question is to take away the pacifier by the time your child turns 1 year old. Which is exactly what I did with my oldest son, I stopped breastfeeding when he turned 13 months and at the same time I removed the pacifier. He never as much said a peep about it. You would think I would have learned from the first time. I do believe that personality plays a roll in the pacifier game too, some children are more attached to their pacifier than others, but by removing it by the time they turn one year old they might not have developed as much of an addiction to it. When it is all said and done, what is 2 weeks of some madness compared to a very inexpensive way of keeping down the risk of SIDS? So YES, I would absolutely do it all over again!

Cecilia