Many children use and adore their pacifier. Inevitably, many parents wonder how to take away this object that brings their babies so much pleasure and peace. The following are the most common questions on this topic and the steps parents should follow to help their children move on from their pacifier.
Why do children suck? and how does the pacifier help them?
One of the most primitive reflexes is sucking. Sucking helps children eat and later becomes the most effective way to calm their body and emotional state. Colic also calms when the baby sucks. The pacifier becomes a habit that helps the child feel secure without the help of others and that helps him achieve the autonomy that is part of a child's developmental trajectory between eighteen months and three and a half years.
Do children abandon the pacifier on their own?
No, we need to help them replace that habit with another positive habit that helps them calm down. For example, at bedtime you can start talking about his pacifier and explain that his pacifier can help another baby. Simultaneously you can offer another object like a cloth, stuffed animal, etc., that replaces the pacifier and helps him sleep.
In my case, when my girl was two years old, we started telling her that it was time to leave her binkie. She always refused. One day I was reading a story about mermaids and I told her that we could give dolphins her pacifiers and they would give them to mermaids and their babies. This fantastic story helped my girl imagine that her pacifiers would be in good hands. I do not recommend that you do exactly that. We took her to Sea World and asked those who took care of the dolphins to receive the pacifiers. She delivered them without fighting. However, that night she cried and felt the regret of not having her pacifier. This is not only normal, but also a human reaction that we feel when we lose something that makes us feel safe. After the third night of crying for her pacifier, she herself began to tell the story that the mermaids began to sleep with her little cloth. Still today at age fourteen she has that little blanket on her bed.
At what age should the pacifier be removed?
Dentists and speech therapists recommend that you transition early, before two years of age preferably, and definitely before four years. This is recommended because the pacifier can deform the palate and can delay the development of the child's speech, in addition to causing joint problems. As I live in the emotional world, I would tell them that they have to give the child time to replace his pacifier with something else that will give them the same calm and help them feel safe.
Steps to follow to move on from the pacifier:
1. Anticipate - we are going to say goodbye to the pacifier. Explain that the time has come to stop using the pacifier and that you and she will practice together how to do so.
2. Take it off gradually - It is not good to suddenly remove or hide the pacifier. It is necessary to gradually decrease the instances of use by letting the bedtime be the last moment the baby uses his pacifier.
3. Find something to replace the pacifier and start giving it to the child before removing it completely. For example, if the child is going to use a cloth, let him use the pacifier and the cloth at the same time to associate the calm that the pacifier gives them with the new object.
4. Agree on the moment when the child is going to leave the pacifier - it may be for the birthday or you can anticipate for the child that every night you will ask if he will give his pacifier that night to babies who need it. When my son was little, we did this for almost two months. When he was between two and a half and three years old I asked him every night, "Are you ready today to give your pacifier to the smallest babies?" And he said no. About a month after he turned three, on one of those nights he said, "Yes mommy, I no longer suck." We had previously decorated a box in which to gather the pacifiers. We looked for the box, kept the pacifiers and never asked again. The insistence on the question and the autonomy that we offered to the child was what enabled him to leave his pacifier.
5. It takes patience, a lot of patience. This process can take 21 days to 3 months.
The sucking reflex and pacifiers are part of the natural trajectory of children. At any age, we all have habits that help us calm our nervous system. For the little ones, it is a pacifier; for adults it is gum, chewing on a pencil top, or moving our legs. If we keep this in mind and give ourselves time for the child to make the transition and find another way to calm down and feel safe, I promise they will not go to college with a pacifier.