How to remove the pacifier and know when to do it is one of the most requested topics by parents.
This is why in this article you will find the 4 complete steps to remove the pacifier respecting the needs of your child ?
That those who support the use of the pacifier always and in any case and are convinced that without a pacifier you cannot manage a small child.
There are mothers who instead claim that without a pacifier their children manage very well and consequently they never found themselves having to understand how and when to remove it.
Yes, you read right above, even if for many it seems an almost obligatory and obvious step, there are mothers who have never used a pacifier. In addition to the initial choice to use the pacifier or not, there are several doubts and dilemmas that every mother has to solve, for example many would like to know:
- When to remove the pacifier? Is there a right and more correct age to eliminate it?
- Are there more correct ways to remove the pacifier without trauma and without crises?
- How long does pacifier withdrawal last? And how is it resolved?
- How can I get rid of it? Are there any specific guidelines to follow?
- How long does it take a baby to get used to without a pacifier? How long will it take to forget it and never ask for it again?
- Are there any consequences after removing the pacifier?
- Are there ways to put babiesto sleep without a pacifier ? Why do babies want pacifiers and keep asking for it?
- How can I get rid of the habit of the pacifier? And how do I take it off if my child is older and 4 years old?
Not to mention all the possible ways that you find around and that sometimes only increase the anxiety about how you should remove the pacifier: from cutting / breaking it to making it suddenly disappear from the house, from giving it a bad taste in order to convince the baby. to use it more than to pretend to lose it.
Fortunately, there are guidelines that take into account your child’s state of mind , that do not involve making fun of him and above all that help to reassure you, the true balance in every mother-child relationship .
In this article you will find the tips:
1️⃣ to prepare yourself and your baby for this delicate step if you are at the beginning of your motherhood
2️⃣ to know what to do step by step if your child is already a little older and you think it ‘s time to remove the beloved pacifier
3️⃣ how to manage your child’s reactions in the transition phase while taking off the pacifier
Obviously the information in this article is presented for informational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your doctor / specialist regarding any specific indications about your situation. If you have any doubts or questions, you should always contact your doctor.
Let’s start from the beginning: if you have yet to become a mother or are just starting out, here’s what you need to know about the pacifier
If you have yet to become a mom or dad or if you are just starting your parenting adventure you can consider the alternative of doing without a pacifier.
I know it seems a bit strange to you, yet even if the pacifier is considered an almost obligatory stop for many, you must know that there are many mothers who have never used a pacifier with their children. I am writing these words to you not because, out of bias, I decided that I did not want to use the pacifier with children.
You are perfectly capable of solving any difficulties your child has at any time
The reason is that, observing the nature of babies and also observing the dynamics of the pacifier, then trying to understand why this tool existed, I came to the conclusion that everything that the pacifier does in fact we can do .
We can do it as moms, we can do it as dad. And adults who take care of our young children can do it when we are not there.
Our arms are there to welcome him, contain him and console him when he is crying and reassure him when he is afraid. When he is crying there are our words and the tone of our voice, our heart to welcome him.
He has our cuddles that accompany him to sleep and make him fall asleep. If he cries because he is hungry we can feed him. When he cries because he is hot we can undress him, if he is cold we can cover him more.
If he cries because there was a loud noise, or because he is angry, or needs comfort for some reason, we can do it with the relationship we have with him.
We do not need to use the pacifier to dab, stifle or stop crying, which is nothing more than the manifestation of a need or a problem that you feel you have at that moment .
So, if you are starting out and think you can consider the fact that the pacifier is not so useful, you can easily do without it and instead focus a lot on the relationship you have with him.
Be aware that you have all the credentials to give your child everything he or she needs and that you are perfectly capable of solving any difficulties he may have at any time.
If you already use it, here is the complete guide: how to remove the pacifier in 4 steps (+ how to manage “crises”)
If you have been using the pacifier for months or years and maybe you are wondering what is the best time to take it off, or if you are at the stage where you are saying “maybe it’s time to start removing the pacifier because I’m afraid it will become too late ”Here’s how you can do it.
When is the best time to take off the pacifier?
Compared to everything I’ve told you so far, the best time is when you want and, maybe, as soon as you can .
Why? Because the more children grow up, the more they strengthen the habits they have begun to learn. Children are very attached to their habits and the fact of building them within them helps them to find points of reference.
Think for example of the morning routine that always repeats itself the same: wake up, pee, wash, get dressed, breakfast, brush your teeth, go out.
When maybe the routine changes for some reason, for example you go straight down to have breakfast without you having dressed it first, he looks at you dazed as if to say “but no, we have to dress first, we’ve always done this!”.
Routines and habits that are repeated day after day are a safety for children and help them learn. But what does this have to do with the pacifier?
Because just as children grow up and become more aware of these habits, so much so that they often follow them independently, the same thing goes for the pacifier: they automatically look for it and, as they grow up, they also put it on their own. .
The habit is fortifying and the child thinks:
“To console me, to relax, to comfort me mum and dad have always given me a pacifier. This means that this is the way adults use to comfort, pamper and reassure children. And for some time now I have learned to console myself and comfort myself in this way, I know nothing else. And if I know anything else, however this is the predominant way I use, so for me this exists to console me.
Therefore, as children grow up, this habit is strengthened and they become more and more aware of the tools they use according to need, it will be a little more complicated to get them out of the habit of using this comfort and pampering tool.
A comparison, albeit a bit extreme, is what happens to an adult smoker.
It’s easy to quit smoking if you’ve been doing it for a week, but it’s harder if you’ve been doing it for 5 years. It is easier to quit smoking if you smoke just one cigarette after lunch, while it is more difficult if you smoke 20 a day.
For children it is the same thing: the sooner we do it, the more it is possible to do it quickly and also more peacefully for the child.
What do I basically do when I decide it’s time to remove the pacifier?
After these premises, what can you do when you decide that it’s probably time to do without the pacifier?
The solutions that, from my point of view, work the most are different and are not direct. I don’t think it will work the sudden pacifier elimination like:
- “Now you give it to me, it no longer exists, we put it away, you will cry tears of blood … it doesn’t matter sooner or later it will pass to you”
- I convince you the first time with a gift (… and then?)
- I tell you that other children need it, that you are grown up, that you don’t need it anymore, now that’s enough …
Instead, you can put in place for the necessary time a series of solutions that I will now explain step by step.
The 1st step to take off the pacifier: you have to be convinced
At this moment our children are still in the first phase of growth, that of imitation, in which they are particularly sensitive to our state of mind.
So our state of mind as mothers greatly affects them, their behavior, their responses. It will then be very important and of great help, if you are the first to firmly believe that:
1️⃣ It’s the right time to do it
2️⃣ You’re convinced you face right now
3️⃣ You are aware, convinced and confident that you have the ability as a mother to help your child go through this evolution and growth phase
Why am I telling you? Because it often happens instead that we are the first to feel insecure and we are assailed by doubts like:
- “I’m afraid I won’t make it if I can’t convince him”
- “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! He’s been used to it for a long time … “
- “I’m not sure I have the strength and the ability to console him”
- “I don’t know what to do when she’s afraid, I don’t know what to do when she starts crying out loud”
- “I remember when my parents deprived me of something and I was very bad … I don’t want to hurt him, I don’t want him to get angry with me”
- “I don’t want him to live as a degenerate mother, I need his love, I don’t want him to be unhappy with me”
- “I find it hard to say no …”
If we are experiencing all this uncertainty, then it is worth the joy to wait a moment, stop and rather do something about us.
2nd step pacifier eliminator: prepare the ground (identify and satisfy the needs that remain uncovered by removing the pacifier)
Before moving on to the phase of eliminating the pacifier, start to understand that, when you remove the pacifier, some “discovered” needs will remain inside your child. For example, what will it do without the pacifier for:
- console yourself
- reassure yourself
- calm down
- do not feel boredom
- get out of despair
- calm the fear
So the suggestion is: while the pacifier is still there, start preparing a good ground.
So prepare yourself, with your mind and heart, to be the person who knows how to console a child, who knows how to take care of his child, who knows how to welcome him, who knows how to cuddle him when he cries, who is not afraid if he falls, who helps him in moments of difficulty.
First you can start to observe it better. For example, notice when he is bored, rather intervene by immediately doing something together, making him laugh, playing together.
Take it from his gaze when he begins to get tired, when he is hungry, when he is a little disheartened. See if, when you said no to him for something, you were more nervous and you gave him this tension: if you calm down, he will also be calmer.
If there is a skirmish with his sister, you can welcome him by taking him in your arms.
Start to understand that for every problem there is your answer that you are able to give, that you can give with your behavior, with your action, with your look, your words, your pampering, your love , your solutions.
You can do it, even if it’s about putting him to sleep at a time when he usually doesn’t sleep if he’s tired. Maybe it’s about picking him up and cuddling him an hour before dinner because he’s getting tired now, he’s becoming capricious.
It involves changing your game 2 or 3 more times in an hour because you notice that you get bored easily and then start having a tantrum. You may find that he is complaining because he is hungry and rather you can feed him one more time.
You don’t need to dab an emotional manifestation of it with a pacifier.
This is the strength game: because if you take a few days, a few weeks to calmly get used to being the solution to its difficulties, then the ground will be prepared. Then, when, little by little, a little at a time, we remove the pacifier, you will not fall down without a parachute, because you will have prepared this ground in which you are the solution ..
Step 3: start by not giving him the pacifier right away
At this point, after you’ve trained and exercised for a few days or weeks, try not to give him the pacifier right away as soon as he starts crying.
Put it somewhere out of sight. You could be the first to forget it in a drawer until the evening. For example, start giving it just more to sleep. Before giving him the pacifier to make him fall asleep, you can tell him a story, sing him a song, rock him, caress him.
We’re just starting out, so at this point, if he can’t fall asleep right away, you can also give him a pacifier. Meanwhile, however, you will have already done a lot of things before giving it to him and, instead of doing as it happened until the day before, the time will have been longer.
You can do the same thing for example when he is bored, when he is most tired, when he cries for some reason: you can wait to give him the pacifier and you can intervene in this way that you have already been cultivating for a few weeks.
4th step to take off the pacifier: we manage your child’s reactions
? If your child is very young (within the year / year and a half)
As I have already explained, age naturally has a lot of influence on the reaction your baby will have. If your child is very young, within the year, year and a half, then it really affects your mood a lot.
If you first begin to forget it in a drawer and he sees that the consolation, the comfort, the welcome, the warmth come to you, he will get used to it much more easily. This is because he is absorbing from you the message you feel inside:
“Here I am. The only thing I know is my actions. My arms, my voice, my warmth: that’s what you need right now. “
If you mentally diminish within yourself the value you give to the pacifier, he will perceive it. He will feel that security is now coming from this mood of yours and will get used to it much more easily.
He too will demand it less and it won’t be so dramatic to forget it more and more often.
? If your child is a little bit older
When our children are a little older, they have got used to it and use it independently, there may be some more difficulties.
In these cases they often ask for it, they cry, they are sick, they scream “ mom give me the pacifier! ”And they want a pacifier because they are used to it now. You will then need more time and to put these solutions into practice longer.
So don’t worry if this phase lasts a few months – that’s fine. Better to take it easy and in the best way than to be in a hurry, expect everything immediately and end up with a child who thinks “ no, you want to take him away, I want him! I will ask you more and more often because I feel you are taking it away from me! ”
Calmly, you get used to it inside you, overcome your resistance, prepare your ground. You keep giving it to him and then you start forgetting it. The first thing you will do will be to arrive and be there : to comfort him, cuddle him, make him fall asleep, pick him up, welcome him, etc., until the very end, when you give him the pacifier.
You will do this by getting used to feeling safe and building within yourself the certainty that you can do this. It is you who manage the situation with authority.
Once we have created this terrain and our son has become accustomed to this way of ours, we will give it to him less and less frequently, precisely only in the most critical moments.
For example, you can give it to him when he is about to fall asleep because he is used to it. When it just explodes for some “whim”, you no longer know which way to go and you are getting nervous, for example we can give it a pacifier.
Maybe it will be once in the day, it will never happen as before, when it always had. At that point we can then begin to say hello to the pacifier, to tell him first of all that there is you, that you don’t need it now, that you have forgotten it in your bag.
But really leave it in your bag, really leave it in the car, because it will be useful for you too so as not to have the excuse of having it within reach. In fact, in the beginning what could happen? He will do a little bit of resistance, because he is used to it and it is normal that this is the case.
A bit like us adults in front of a “you can’t smoke this cigarette” “no, we leave this tiramisu in the fridge, eat it tomorrow” .
In these cases it happens that maybe you go a little tense, you are afraid of not being able to console him and you end up thinking “okay, I’ll give him the pacifier, next time we’ll see” .
If, on the other hand, you really forget it in the car, it’s just you. It will be you who will have to accept without the help of the pacifier, this also important cry, this frustration of your child. And you will succeed. Maybe it will last a little longer. Maybe it will take you 20 minutes, or half an hour, but you can do it. You can really do it.
After all, how we welcome the great frustration of our son who is 7/8 years old and no longer wants to study, or when we have to turn off the television or when he cannot play another game of a video game. Also in this case the frustration is enormous, maybe he is very angry.
What do we do, we give him the pacifier? No! We solve with our own strength. We resolve within the relationship.
Here the way of thinking is the same. You can safely do without the pacifier even if crying and frustration are important crying and frustration.
What do I tell him if I encounter resistance to taking the pacifier off?
I happened to hear stories from some mothers who told me:
“Look at Roberta, preparing the ground in this way, being convinced by me, it almost seems that if she forgets it. I did this sort of weaning a little at a time, at one point I told him “the pacifier now we give it to the pacifier fairy who in exchange can make it go with all her pacifier friends on the pacifier island. He told me that in exchange he brings you a little gift, that thing you cared so much about “. He, calmly, has never asked me again. And if anything happens, I’m there, if he says “pacifier!” I tell him that we gave it to the fairy, I cuddle him as long as he needs it, solving his needs and moods and I have no problems. “
Other times our children do a little more resistance and there is a little more difficulty. The first few times they will have more nostalgia for the pacifier, the crying and frustrations will be a little more important, and that will not mean that you have done something wrong.
Each situation is different. Again, with confidence, continue to welcome the cry, firm on your decision.
Story to remove the pacifier: when our friend speaks and reassures your child
You console him, you welcome him, you are sensitive to his displeasure and you say to your child:
“I am so sorry that you feel so bad and I know, before there was the pacifier, but it doesn’t matter because now I’m here, you can cry quietly, even if you miss the pacifier. Even I am sad every now and then, when dad maybe goes away to work for two or three days, I miss dad and my little heart cries, I also get a tear, because I feel this nostalgia. I wonder: how can I do without dad in the evening, who doesn’t sleep with me, and we can’t eat together, we can’t talk together?
I know, it takes a little getting used to. So do you know what we do? Now let’s give the pacifier a little thought, say “hello pacifier, how are you there in the world of the fairy? With all your pacifier friends? ” Let’s hear what it says? I feel it in my little heart: “I’m fine, I’m fine! I’m sorry Luca that you are so bad! I’m having so much fun here with all my pacifier friends! And with the game that gave you the fatigue, are you enjoying yourself? Do you know that I chose it for you? Let’s go get this little game ?! “
And maybe with the connection of the toy and the pacifier, with your safe, calm, loving and balsamic words you reassure him as in any other situation and for any other “whim”.
