What determined when you got rid of your baby's paci?

Question

my son is almost a year, and i've decided that at the year mark, we'll get rid of his pacifier. he looks so big (he is honestly the size of a 2 year old) that sometimes i think i should have gotten rid of it by now. what made you know it was time? baby's size? age? teeth? activity level? baby's peers?

Answer 1

I traded him a new toy for his pacifiers.I don't think he really understood but he was alright with it.

Answer 2

My daughter was 2.  I didn't want my kid to be the one you saw in the store, who still had a pacifier stuck in his mouth at age 5.  

Answer 3

never had that problem. My son never like the paci. sorry

Answer 4

Neither of my kids like Paci's at all--they just spit them out.  

But if they had I would have gotten rid of them around the time I bottle broke.  

Now I just have to figure out how to get my daughters thumb out of her mouth.  Never had this problem with my son but my daughter is a thumb sucker-I guess that's why she didn't like the paci.

Answer 5

My son stopped sucking his paci when he was like 4 months old because i had lost it and it was a paci that came from the hospital (when he was born, the only one he would suck) and i bought others but he would not suck them so he stopped because the paci came from the hospital i had him at and that hospital is 2 hours away from here so he stopped which i guess was a good thing.

Answer 6

start cutting tiny pieces of it until there is nothing left. :]

Answer 7

well babies do need a paci

but dont let them get to attached

there teeth could start to rot

i think that about 1 is the perfect age and all u need

to do is rub a jalapeño on it

and they will never want one again

Answer 8

My son never took one, but if he did, I'd let him have it at home as long as he wants it. It will not damage permanent teeth unless he is still using it when they come in. I had mine until I was almost 6 and my teeth are near-perfect.

I reason I would leave it is: What are you going to do if he replaces it with his thumb?

I always think this way: if you were sad/tired/whatever and you wanted to come home and slip into comfy clothes, would you deny yourself that comfort?

If you had a hard time sleeping at night, wouldn't you make sure you bed was comfy and the sheets were soft?

A paci is just a comfort and I see nothing wrong with it.

The last reason I would EVER do anything is because of what people might SAY.

Answer 9

My daughter is two and still has her paci. Her daddy(my husband) is over in Iraq so I decided that she could keep it until he gets back and than we are putting it on the Christmas tree for Santa to take.

Good luck taking your sons away.  

Answer 10

at 1 year I started only letting my daughter have her paci in her crib.  She would take naps and sleep through the night with it.  If she wanted it during the day she had to go in the crib to be with it - paci wasn't allowed to leave her bed, but she could visit it as she liked.  Eventually the trips to paci got fewer and fewer and she only used it at night.  But one day when she was a little older the paci fairy came and took her paci to a new baby that needed it. Of course the paci fairy left a special present for her :)

reasons:

I didn't want every picture of her blocked by the paci.

I didn't like when it fell in the store you couldn't make the crying stop.

I didn't like that in the winter she would get a rash where the binky ended.

It's too hard to stop the 'sharing of paci' unless you are Flash Gordon.  

Answer 11

I think we got rid of our kids pacifiers when they started getting more mobile.  (Probably about 9 - 11 months or so.)  I got so sick of having to go on the hunt for them and cleaning the d**n things all the time that I just threw them away.

Answer 12

really, it's all in the gut feeling. you as a parent will know. But when it happens, be prepared for a fuss, and whatever you do, don't give in. it is very important for the child to know that when the parent makes the decision, it is final

Answer 13

We stopped our daughter's paci as soon as she could suck her fingers / thumb to comfort herself.  This has worked well, and she's not addicted to her thumb, though she does suck it sometimes, like when she's tired, going to sleep, a little upset, etc.  That was around four months of age, as I recall.  After six months kids start to get attached to their pacis, so it's harder to get them to give them up.  However, I think it's great that you want to wean your little one off of his because it can cause tooth problems, even the "dental" ones.  He'll probably cry for it for a while, but then he'll probably just start sucking his thumb instead (and please let him do this because it's perfectly natural up until age six or so; after that, very occasional thumb sucking is OK, but constant thumb sucking should be evaluated).  Good luck!

Answer 14

When the baby becomes 2 yrs old then it is time. Once the baby becomes a toddler and he is walking and crawing. Also if he is potty trained and drinks from a cup instead of a bottle. If he is at this stage, then it is def time.