Pacifiers. Nuks. Pacies. Plugs.
Arrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Our lives revolves around them.
About a year ago, Jessie got her pacifier stuck in her mouth. I’m not sure who was more terrified by that, her or me. I panicked and we decided that we’d make them go cold turkey – no more NUKs. Of course, the person who had to bear the brunt of our hasty decision was Rachel at daycare. She calmly pointed out to us that while the plastic part had gotten stuck behind Jessie’s gums (this was pre-teeth), it came right out, it was too big to be swallowed, and it had a couple of air holes cut in it so that she wouldn’t suffocate. And then she mentioned that the alternative was that she’d start to suck her thumb and when we wanted to wean her from all of that, it would be much easier to take away a pacifer than to take away her thumbs.
We’re reasonable adults. We were persuaded.
So, a year later, we’ve got two kids who are getting older and yet still have plastic rings in their faces.
It could be worse. They could be in school and still sucking on them. They’re only a year and a half.
And yet, they’re getting older. They’re starting to talk. They’re getting more active and more interested in everything around them. Surely they could be happy without sucking on some piece of plastic.
We’ve got them somewhat weaned. They don’t use them at daycare any more. When we drop them off, they’ll take the pacifers out of their mouths and hand them to us. We’ll put them in the cupboard and they stay there all day (except at naptime). In exchange, they get a little piece of graham cracker (hey, they gotta have something – breakfast isn’t served until after they’ve been there about an hour and a half). When we pick them up, they run right to us, give us enormous hugs, and then Sam runs right over to stand by the cupboard, finger pointing at it, and shouting, “May-may-may-may-may” (Actually, her word for it is somewhere between “may” and “mee” -hard to spell). She’s not going to get her coat on or leave until she gets that binky back in her cake hole.
Once they get home they have supper, then they play for a little bit and then take a bath and go to bed. They’re pretty tired when they get home. They can eat without the binky, but after that, they really want it because they’re tired and crabby. Really crabby most days. Now they’re associating sucking on the binky with something they do while they’re at home. And for the most part we’ve been too tired ourselves on the weekends to provoke the meltdown tantrums that would come with a pacifer weaning project. We have been taking them away any time we go to the store or someplace like that for quite some time, though.
A couple of weekends ago I decided it was time. We cut little holes in two of the NUKs so they wouldn’t hold their shape just right. Got that idea from one of the other moms at daycare. Her little boy bit a hole in his when he was getting teeth and never wanted anything to do with it after that. Sad for us, Jessie never even noticed the difference. Sam did and threw a fit. She was really angry at that pacifer and threw it repeatedly, picked it up, stuck it in her mouth, then threw it across the room again. Finally after a few hours she just stuck it in her mouth and got over it. So much for Plan A. Plan B involved dipping the pacifiers in lemon juice. That was a miserable failure, too. Jessie didn’t notice at all. Sam made a really bad “bitter beer” face and almost wrinkled up her nose into the back of her head. But after several sucks on it she was ok with that and went on her merry little way.
Plan C was implemented last Sunday. We just took the things away from them and told them they didn’t need them. Sam kept saying, “may” but was easily distracted and wasn’t too put out by the loss of her best bud, the binky. Jessie on the other hand had several sad little meltdowns, screaming, hitting, kicking, disolving into a heap of limp saddness. I just held her and was pleased to discover that I was able to outlast her. Eventually she’d calm down and then go back to playing. They got the pacifers for naptime, but afterwards had to give them up.
It went far better than expected. The kids are WAY cuter without the binkies. They’re more active. They talk more. They’re just more engaged. It’s great. It was a bit easier because they’re kind of outgrowing them naturally. They’re getting bigger and I know there is a bigger size of the NUK than what we’re currently using and the current ones just are a little too small for their mouths. Jessie will often be running around and drop hers out of her mouth and carry on as if she doesn’t even notice it. Until she does notice that she has an empty hole and then runs back to find it. Sam will pull it out to talk, then pop it back in after she’s said something.
We’re not completely free of the danged things, but I think we’re getting close. We’ll take it a little at a time until they just don’t need them any more. In the meantime, hopefully we’ll be able to get some more pictures of the kids without the ubiquitous plastic mouthpieces (see previous post).
