Paci Free Days

Well we have one day under our belt. I decided that yesterday was the day to take Reese's pacifier away. She's almost 16 months and I am appalled at myself for letting it go this long. My light bulb moment was a few weeks ago the older kids had a dentist appointment and they have some enamel issues due to prematurity and the Dr. Egger just wanted to make sure it wasn't a genetic thing so he looked in her month and said right away: "pacifier or thumb sucker?"

We stopped using pacis with the triplets when they were 10 or 11 months old. It was such a nonevent I don't even remember the exact timing. They loved their pacifiers too, Ethan loved his thumb more but he would take a paci. Around 8 or 9 months I just stopped bringing it out of their beds because first I had to locate them since they were always under the bed beside the mattress thrown across the room. Then downstairs we had 3 to keep track of and which was whose. It was a pain so they just used them at nap and night time. I didn't even put them in their mouth, if they could find them, good for them. I really believe that anything you are going to get rid of using with the kids has to be done before or right around 12 months of age otherwise emotionally dependency kicks in and then it's a thousand times harder. Bottles were the same at 1 year for all my kids we slowly got rid of them and it wasn't hard at all.

Reese has only been using her paci at nap time, bedtime, in the car, and during shopping for the about 2-3 months except for a few times when she was sick, we didn't let her have it during the day. Yesterday Reese and I ran errands in the morning and didn't take a paci with us. She was fussy for a little bit but I turned on the Wiggles CD and she started dancing and singing instead, easy enough. She didn't' get a morning nap so I put her down a little early in the afternoon and she cried for about 2 hours. After she emptied her bed and tore down her mobile, I didn't think she was going to sleep so out she came. I thought she might be bordering insanity by the end of the day but she wasn't grouchy at all. Then came bedtime and she cried for just a little bit maybe 5 minutes and she was out. She woke up twice and after holding her for a little bit in our bed she'd fall back asleep and we put her back in her crib. She was up bright and early at 6am which is unusual for her but we made it. I just put her down for a nap and she was not happy at all. Screaming and really mad, I went up there once. I held her and she was fine until I laid her back down. It's been about 35 minutes and I'm not hearing anything. So I think she may have given in and went to sleep. So wish me good luck, we're on to the next thing -- what would that be . . . potty training? (just kidding)