About Nadine Silverthorne
Nadine Silverthorne’s love of journaling began in Grade One with the entry, “I am the greatest dancer!” Two babies (and countless diaper changes) later, she has found her home away from home as editor of SweetMama. Don’t miss her humorous bi-weekly accounts of the joys and pains of working while raising them fabulous.
Suck It
Silver Spoons canada
(May.25.09)
Before I had children, I used to eye people who gave their children pacifiers with a mix of suspicion and disapproval. "What's the matter," I would think, "Can't they take five minutes to soothe their children? Do they need to shut them up with a dummy?" (Remind me to write a post in future about all the ideas I had about parenting before I actually had children.)
Then I had a baby who breastfed a lot, with an aggressive sucking reflex (and a non-stop need to suck) and I was running to the drugstore before I could say "OWmynipplesHURT!" But try as I might, he just wouldn't take a soother.
Eventually he learned to suck his thumb. Great, I thought, at least it's all natural, he has access to it when he needs it and I don't have to worry about safety recalls. But now he's four and while he only uses it at bedtime, the thumb is proving a hard habit to break.
When my second arrived I was determined not to have to deal with the future need for braces. So I began to introduce the pacifier slowly and on occasion. But before long it became a night-time necessity (probably created by my extreme need for a good night's rest after going back to work). We would put her in her crib with five pacifiers, in case they fell out in the night. Then we somehow lost a bunch of them and it didn't make sense to buy too many more. She'd grow out of this soon, right?
Wrong. Nights were a mess without the soother. Then I discovered awesome soother leashes by companies like Bugalug and Clippopotamus. We carefully clipped them down low by her belly button on her one-piece sleepers (you're not supposed to use them at night due to the choking risk, but we exercised great caution -- and hey, we were desperate) and we had glorious sleep. Life was so much better with sleep!
Then months later, she decided she hated the soother clips. If we tried to attach one to her, she would rip it off in a rage. So now we're back to giving her one pacifier and hoping for the best. Unfortunately, this means she cries out several times in the night when it falls out of her mouth or out of reach. And not just a complainy "Wahhh," but a scream that could peel paint.
I'm fed up. I'm tired of having to wash them because they fell on the floor again. I'm tired of shuddering in horror as she drops her "choo-choo" and pops it back in her mouth (covered in sand, dust, cat hair, etc) before I can reach her. I'm tired of angrily asking who saw the choo-choo last. I am done.
So what do I do? How do I get her to quit? My eldest used to have a milk from a baby bottle addiction that I made him quit cold turkey and it was fine. Do I just give the pacifiers a funeral and hope for the best? Do I make a show of their eviction from our house, or just whack 'em quietly like a mafia snitch? I'd appreciate advice, so if you have suggestions (but please reserve your judgements), log in and let me know what I should do.
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