- Hi, I'm Dana.
Welcome to this week's video.
You've all seen it,
you've been in the mall or the grocery store
and you've seen that child where you're thinking to yourself
hmm, he's too big for a soother or a pacifier.
Right, we all make these little judgements
even thought we're you know trying to be supportive
and it might even be you (laughs),
you're the one with a child
that you know it's too big for that pacifier.
So I wanna talk today about some tips and strategies
for getting rid of the pacifier.
Now I believe that pacifiers
often cause interference
with the consolidation of nighttime sleep
so I tend to be a little more pushy
with getting rid of them earlier
because of that reason.
I mean that's what I'm doing here people
I'm all about teaching children
how to have glorious beautiful nighttime sleep
and so if anything's getting in the way of that
I'm getting rid of it, absolutely I am.
And even if your child doesn't wake you up
they are having wake ups in the night
full wake-ups in the night
where they have to find that pacifier
and get it back into their mouth
and that's a fragmented night,
that's a broken night.
Yes we all have naturally occurring wake-ups in the night
but they should be so brief
that you don't even have awareness around them
you think you slept great through the night
that's what I want for every child
so if anything's in the way I'm getting rid of it.
But what if, you know what you miss the memo on that
and you got a child where you're thinking
it's time let's get rid of this thing.
Great, then let's do it.
Now there's a few different ways you can do it
I'm the kind of mom
I'm the let's just rip that band aid right off
fast, get this over with
and so if it were me I would just gather them all up one day
and throw them out, and they're gone, they're gone.
Now I want to share with you some good news
almost always
you the parent
are way more attached to this pacifier
than the child is
and that might shock you but it's the truth.
When I tell parents to get rid of a pacifier
their face goes white, they get super nervous
they might even start to sweat
but it takes a day or two, it's gone, it's over,
it's not that big of a deal to the child
you're just making it one, okay?
So if you've decided, hey just go for it.
She may ask for it
there might be even a little bit of tears now and then right
throughout the day but within a couple of days
she'd have completely forgotten that she ever even used one.
So to get through that little hurtle
distraction is the best form of defense.
If she starts asking for her pacifier or her soother
whatever she calls it
oh it's time for snack let's go have a snack,
or oh my goodness let's go and call grandma
or oh let's go and take the laundry out.
Just distract her from the idea.
Children are very easy to distract and then again
it's out of sight out of mind and off she goes.
Now there's a couple of other ways
if you wanna do this a little more gently
or a little more fun,
you can have what we would call the pacifier fairy come.
So the pacifier fairy came
and she took all of your pacifiers
but she left you this wonderful gift,
whatever it is.
That can be a way to spin it positively.
I'm not in love with the idea of giving it away to a baby
you know if you've got a baby in the house
or you know someone who had a baby
I don't really like to get the toddler involved
in giving the pacifiers to the baby
because toddlers have this sort of
love-hate relationship with growing up
they wanna be big boys
they wanna be big girls
but they're also still babies in lots of ways
and so they might even actually like the idea
of giving the pacifiers to the baby
but somewhere in the near future
they're gonna have some regret around that
and they're gonna wish that they hadn't
and they might start saying you know
I'm the baby, I want those back,
so I would steer away from that approach.
But I think the bottom line is
you ultimately make the decisions here,
you've decided it's time to say goodbye to these pacifiers
and so you have to stand behind that
and know that it is okay
if she's a little bit upset for a few days
because it's not there.
If it's used for sleep
there might be a little bit of you know
sleep regression or some protest at bedtime
because she doesn't have her pacy
but this blows over really quickly
and you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.
Thanks so much for watching.
Sleep well.