Hello all, it's been quite a while since I have had a chance to get on this site. Hope all had a great holiday season. My dilema is that I am going to TRY to take the pacifier from my 23 month old. My older son just gave his up at 6 months old and it was never an issue with him. My youngest, it will be a big issue. He relies on it very much, it seems a lot more since the divorce. Any suggestions? ideas?

What I did to break my daughter off of it was start cutting off a slice at the tip and keep doing it until there is nothing left to s*ck on.

lol now that's inventive. great idea! my kiddo wasnt too attach to it.

I cant help you too much with the pacifier isue; my son was never really into it. The bottle on the other hand is a different story and I dont think Ill ever be able to get the kid to sleep without it. Im watering it down tons, but he still has to have it or he wont get down to sleep. Moral support is all I can offer.

I told my daughter that each time she lost one..it was gone for good. Then I took them one at a time and hid them away. She understood that once she couldn't find them they were gone and since I did it gradually things were fine. Of course, whe was using logic much earlier than my son. Thank goodness he doesn't use one of those nasty things!

Well, believe it or not, my mother told me that when I was about 3 we went to the dentist, who explained to her that I must stop using the pacifier or it will hurt my teeth bad.
After that she was desperate when I wouldn't stop, she tried everything in the book, so in the end she actually explained to me what the dentist had said, and that did it : I stopped using them that very day. No idea how a 3 year old could understand that, but it worked.

A friend of mine had her son using it, he was about 2.5 years old. Apparently they come in different sizes, and the one he was using was becoming too small. So she told him that, and he stopped too.

My son never used anything (not even his thumb or a baby bottle), so I can't really understand fully to be honest.

But apparently kids understand more than we think sometimes...is all I wanted to say.

I used to get so frustrated with the Binky. Tyler had to have THREE at all times. One in each hand and one in his mouth. He switched them around. He would get rashes around his mouth from them. Finally he threw it in my ex's bowl of soup and said "eat it" Mark pretended to put it in his mouth. We told Tyler it was all gone. He did great for about a month, then began sucking his thumb. He did that until he was ten.(He would deny this) I finally paid him 50 bucks to quit. I caved into alot of pressure to take the pacifier away. I don't think I should have. I think he really needed the comfort he got from it. I used an ortho approved one so it didn't mess up the teeth. The thumb is harder to break, because you can't throw it away.

LOL that is too funny Shana. I can just image a baby with one in the mouth and hands. Makes me laugh picturing it. Luckily for me Gabe only really uses it to go to sleep, but he's not dependent on it. What he depends on is music, most of the time, I put on the John Hiatt or Sheryl Crow and after some rocking and singing he gets real calm and goes to sleep. I have heard the cutting the tip off works well. My niece had hers taken away and ending up sucking on one of her fingers and because of the way she always had the finger in her mouth, her teeth and grew in wrong and she's going to need major work done. So if he goes to a finger I would push for the thumb, lol doesn't seem to mess up teeth. Best of luck though, let us know what happens.

Amy

The binky! I hated those things! Ty would only use it to sleep, but I hated that when he was around other babies, he thought he needed it. We went shopping one day and he kept throwing it. I picked it up a couple dozen times, and then told him that if he threw it one more time, I was going to leave it where it landed. He looked right at me and smiled, then tossed that binky right by me. I kept walking. When we finished what we needed to do, I walked back by there, and the binky was gone. He was 1 1/2 at the time. He was mad for 3 days when it came time for nap or bed, then he finally gave up. He never really sucked his thumb until recently when he saw that his friend does that. I asked him how that made his friend look. He said it made him look like a baby and he didn't want to look like one. Solved that problem quick, too!

I was watching Nanny 911 the other night. Ever see that show?? OMG!! I think it's on wed nights, if anyone gets a chance to catch it you should check it out. Parents who are in serious need of skills and have lost control of their children call in British old-school nannies for a week to lay the smack down...mostly on the parents.

2 weeks ago there was a 3yo and a 4yo who had dodies, and the nanny said it was time for them to go. She made the kids hand them over and put them into a baggie, because "The babies need them now."

I think the idea was to have the children voluntarily hand them over "to the babies". The parents had to listen to their kids cry for a night, but it looked like it all worked out.

Tyler and his friend Carrington were the largest kids in their 3rd grade class. They were partners, played soccer and baseball together. Their teacher used to have to tell both of them (quietly, she was a great teacher) to take their thumbs out. She would laugh with me about her two big boys. Carrington died last year. It was so sad. He just dropped dead at school during practice. Turns out he had an undiagnosed heart condition. He was such a sweet kid. I just rememember him and Tyler sitting together in class with their thumbs in their mouths.

Well yesterday was the first day we were going to try and go without the binky. My sitter had no problems with nap time. But when it came time for him to go to bed he went looking for it. I guess just one step at a time. Although I never though about cutting the tip of it, that might be a good idea to try. Thanks for all your advice.