How Pacifier Weaning Went With Our 3 Year Old
Lots of interest in this topic, so now that we’ve made it through, here’s exactly what we did and how it went. (This is an old pic btw.)
I wanted to get rid of the pacifier for months, but Nate was an incredible sleeper (he would sleep in every day and take 3 hour naps), so I didn’t want to mess with it. But he’s almost 3.5, his teeth started shifting, and he became so obsessed with the thing that he started crying for it all day.
During those months, we let him know he’d have to get rid of his pacifier one day because big kids don’t need them. He told me he would cry every day, but we talked about it a lot, I reassured him we would never take it when he wasn’t looking, and we promised him an incredible present when he was ready to say goodbye.
Two weeks leading up, we got serious and told him it would be happening soon. We told him we ordered his present (we actually had it already, but hid it until he could have it). We got the book Bye Bye Binky and we told him how we were going to give his pacifiers to babies who are crying because they don’t have any.
With one week left, we started a countdown. We talked about what was going to happen every day and Nate requested we read the book about 50 times. You could see him mentally preparing.
We decided to take it away on a Friday night so we could be fully present, no phones or distractions. After dinner, we gave Nate a brand new stuffie and then told him it was time, but that he could say goodbye first. He was devastated and started sucking his pacifier hard. After a few minutes, we showed him a pretty box and asked him to put the pacifiers in so we could send them to the babies. He covered his mouth with his hands and was hysterical, holding on. I let him have it for about 30 more minutes until I said it was really time now. I feel like I went out of my body as I pulled it away because it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I kept telling myself it would be much crueler to build up to this moment only to have to try again tomorrow or to take it away when he wasn’t looking, which I said we would never do.
He cried and screamed for hours that night. He didn’t want his blankeys or stuffies. He didn’t want to go into his room and he didn’t even want to sleep in bed with me. He wouldn’t let us cuddle or even go near him. He started running and throwing himself on the floor every time we tried. I let him cry and just talked to him and told him I was there. He eventually calmed down when I brought him upstairs and he fell asleep as I rocked him. Only problem was the room with the rocking chair (massive rocking lounger) is made of glass, so I had to bring him back to his own room before the sun came up. I was able to transfer him to his bed, but he woke up every hour of the night, hysterical until I brought him back upstairs. This repeated for a couple days.
On day 3, the crying and screaming got worse. He refused to change into pajamas or cuddle with me at all. He forced himself to stay up past midnight, but eventually fell asleep cuddling in my bed. He finally stopped throwing the blankey his pacifier had been attached to and I watched as he started wrapping it around his neck for comfort. We continuously assured him we would never take it away, no matter how big he gets.
A few more days in, the crying got somewhat better, but it became harder to physically get him into bed since he would run away. After a long chase, we’d finally get him all tucked into our bed, since he still refused to go into his own room, not even to play. I was just grateful he was sleeping in a bed, as opposed to the glass room, which had him waking up for the day at 6am. Even in our bed though, he was waking up all night crying and then getting up around 7am for the day (very early for him). If I tried transferring him to his bed, he’d wake up immediately. Nap time had also become non-existent.
By day 8, we were desperate. Everyone I knew (plus the internet) told me their toddler forgot about the pacifier after 2-3 days, no matter how addicted he or she had been. But we were on day 8 and Nate was still struggling hard.
So we took out the FridaBaby pacifier weaning kit I had bought just in case. It’s a pack of 5 pacifiers that get smaller and smaller, each with a hole that gets bigger and bigger. Nate was so addicted to his pacifier that I don’t think the kit would have worked for him to start, but because it had been 8 days, I decided to trust my gut and give him one as his “special sleeping pacifier.” My thought process: He might be able to soothe himself with it simply because it looks like a pacifier, but it can’t be that soothing with a hole in it, so even if he did get addicted to it, I would just continue with the kit to wean him off.
Through his hysterical cries, I told him he was still a big boy (a title very important to him), but that I had a special sleeping pacifier for him, just to use at home if it made him feel better. He was crying too hard to look, so I put it in his hand. Almost instantly, he calmed down, closed his eyes, and went to sleep. He didn’t even put it in his mouth, just held it all night. He even wanted to go to his own bed!
The next morning, he slept in like his old self, but he cried when I said he had to leave the pacifier in his bed after he woke up. I’m so happy I made him though because he was so excited to get back to it at nap time and he wound up taking his usual 3 hour nap.
The rest of the week went relatively smoothly. No more crying and screaming. Just a new normal of bedtime being harder since Nate no longer had a pacifier that made him want to jump into his bed and go to sleep.
He was still waking up 1 or 2x during the night and he’d sometimes ask to sleep in my bed just to fall asleep, but overall, the transition went so well after that.
Three weeks later, he’s back to sleeping through the night (with some exceptions), but he no longer even wants his sleeping pacifier.
I can’t believe we really do have a big boy now!
