My daughter is 2 1/2 and still uses a soother at night time and nap time and my husband and I think its time to get rid of them. Its been about a yr now where she only uses them to sleep but I think its still gonna be an issue. We are having a visit from the poody fairy tonight. We are going to pack up her soothers (poodys as we call them LOL) all nice in a little bag and hang them outside in the tree that we will decorate and the poody fairy will come at night and take them to give to little babies that dont have any soothers and in return she will leave her a present. We have been mentioning this to her for quite sometime now and it is a 50/50 split as to her being on board or not. Some days she gets all excited and then others she will tell us no way is she giving them up. We are doing this tonight so I hope she is ready. She is down for her last nap with them now and we told her that before she went to sleep this afternoon but we shall see how it all goes tonight. Has anyone else done this idea and if so how did it go for you? we decided that the weekend was the best time to try this because then we will be able to stand strong together all weekend - I DO NOT plan to cave =)
Yes a poody/soother is a pacifier
It is hard. But when I finally said "NO!" I knew it was for his own good and that helped A LOT. I took him to the dentist, and the dentist showed me all the areas the binky was affecting his teeth.
I threw the last binky we owned out the car window on the way home from the dentist.
It took about 3 days to get over taking a nap without it.
Make sure that you teach her something else that will *soothe* her... a technique she can use. You can't just take away the way she soothes herself without replacing it with a new one.... just one that is more age appropriate and socially acceptable. For my daughter it was rubbing the back of her teddy bear to fall asleep.
I think, for me, it helped to make it developmentally appropriate... it took the emotion out of it - for me at least....lol!
Good Luck! Stay Strong!!!!!!!
My niece did that with her son. It worked.
As for us--we ditched them all before 6 months so it never became a habit.
Wasn't an issue with us, but I've heard of others doing this, and I've only heard good things. Sounds like you've done a great job setting this up with her.
Is that the girl on Facts of Life? ;)
Ours was called the Dowdy (her choice, not any adults..we called it a Nuk but she started with Dowdy about 11 mos old).
We only had it at bed time from about 16 mos on, but she already had a blankie and a beanie baby addiction as well. So we pumped her up for the big "Day you turn 3 no more Dowdy" thing. Cold turkey.
Tough few days but all was fine.
(BTW~ she will be 18 end of the month and the blankie leaves for college with her next week...can't fight all the addictions I guess, and at her age, it could be far worse. It lives under her pillow and is very thin and cared for!)
Good Luck!
We didn't to a whole "fairy" thing... just explained that she couldn't have it anymore. I didn't want my daughter running around with a binky after age 2... and somehow they got her to nap & make it through the day without it at daycare (off the bottle & binky by 1)! At home, she only got it for naps & bedtime. So, about 2 months before her birthday we started talking about it. Then, about a month before, we were down to 1 (all the others had been broken, chewed, lost, etc), so we figured we'd just go cold-turkey so we didn't have to buy any more (backups). We had about 3 rough nights, and about another week of asking for it at bedtime... then she just forgot about it! Probably could've done it sooner, but it wasn't as stressful as we were expecting.
are you talking about pacifiers? So confused....
Our oldest child did just fine. no problems at all. We were SHOCKED!! Well, until we realized that she had replaced her pacifier with a llittle stuffed cotton bear and was sucking on his arm. UGH! She had that nasty thing for another 6 months. When we finally got rid of THAT, she did great again, and we realized that she just started to suck on the corner of her comforter. OMG! I finally gave in and just made sure that her blamkets were always clean. She did it until she was well into her 6th year. LOL!
Our second daughter didn't use a paci. she sucked her finger. Never could figure out how to get her to stop that one. She finally stopped on her own when she was around 7 or 8. Her teeth are fine, but her finger is a little bumpy where she sucked it, even to this day and she's 19 now. LOL! Good luck!
With our first, we had an awful time getting rid of them. She was 3 1/2. We did a countdown for a week then "mailed them" to Baby Allie a friend's new baby who lived out of state. She was so upset that she stayed up half the night crying until Daddy went out at 2AM and bought her some more. Ugh!!!
We did the Nuk fairy with our second. He was excited about the present, but cried for his Nuks at naptime and bedtime for about 3 days. He was also 3 1/2 at the time.
We didn't want our third to have them until 3 1/2, so we made him go cold turkey when he was 2 1/2. We just said they were lost. He cried for a couple of days, then was fine.
You can do it! Definitely do not cave! You'll just prolong the agony!
My guy gave his up at 13 months, we couldn't find it at bedtime. He also gave up his bottles that same day (we had started that in the morning) so he gave both up cold turkey and was over them in 3 days. He cried the first night, fussed some the 2nd night, asked on the 3rd night for them and I told him he didn't take them anymore and he never asked for them again.
I do know the longer they have them the harder it is, so my only suggestion would be to drive them to a trash bin/can so not only are you not tempted to dig them out of your trash, it will be impossible to and she will know this...I know you plan not to cave, but sometimes hearing their tears or anger we do ; ) Hope all goes well!
I have a 13 month old with a bink obsession. He was seriously premature (13 weeks) and we have been told that a lot of NICU babies become hooked. I am dreading the time when we have to separate them, but we will deal when we have to!
So please tell us what happened??
If at all her fussing will be 2-3 days. Don't give in and it will be fine. My daughter actually didn't play with the present, I think it reminded her of the paci but was fine.
