Bu-Bye, Paci? The dilemma...

(This is a rare picture of Jason with his pacifier.  It was taken an hour past naptime at a neighborhood event...the paci held him off a bit so the big kids could play at the park longer.)

I have no problem with pacifiers.  Really, I don't.  I use them as a sleep prop, not necessarily to keep my kid's mouth occupied so he won't cry or express his needs throughout the day. 

With Ryan, I did bring it in public to help keep him quiet when he was fussy,  until I could get him home, feed him or pull over to change his diaper.  He loved the thing and it was very convenient, until  he was six months old, when it stopped being a helpful plug and he began playing with it.  So I took it away completely and he found his thumb at night.  Which he sucked until last year.  I completely regretted the decision to get rid of his pacifier.

Kaylin wouldn't take a pacifier, no matter how hard I tried.  Well, maybe I didn't try that hard, but she wasn't interested at all.  I decided not to push it, then she ended up finding her thumb anyway.  Again, only when she sleeps, but we are still dealing with this habit and will likely be paying for years of braces for, now, a second child.

When Jason came along, I was determined not to have another 6 year old thumb sucker, so I was adamant about him taking a pacifier.  Thankfully, he loved it from the beginning.  It was tough when he was an infant, because he freaked when it fell out of his mouth at night.  I celebrated the day when he was agile enough to find it and replace it all by himself.  Again, we kept it in his crib and only used the paci at night.  He absolutely loved. the. thing.

At his 18 month well-check last week, I was completely caught off guard when the doctor insisted that I get rid of Jason's pacifier. 

Um, excuse me?  He's still so little! 

I had planned on dealing with this issue sometime within the next year, hoping not to let it go past Jason's 3rd birthday, but now? Right now?  I don't think so, lady.  But I was determined to nod and smile as she made her case.

The pediatrician was initially worried that Jason has fluid in his ears and was thinking it's because he's laying on his back at night, sucking, that fluid is draining into his ears.  That sounded valid to me...so I allowed her to keep talking.

She also said something about pacifiers causing speech delays. (which clearly, Jason does NOT have...she mentioned a dozen times in the appointment how freaky it was to hear a child his age saying so much)  When she realized this didn't apply to Jason, she pointed out that the placement of the tongue while sucking on a pacifier can cause stuttering problems...and no one needs an additional reason to be bullied.

I wasn't thoroughly convinced, but she continued on.  She suggested that I take the pacifier away after he fell asleep that night, then never give it back.

That night. No warning.  At all...?  I wasn't emotionally ready for this.

She even went as far as to make a follow up appointment with us next month to check up on Jason's fluid in his ears. And probably to keep me accountable to taking away his pacifier before his 2nd birthday.

I left the appointment and called Mike.  The news surprised him too, but he was on board.  I was hoping he would be outraged, as I was. No luck there.

Then I called my BFF, who has a son a couple of weeks older than Jason, who also uses a pacifier and goes to our same pediatrician.  Sure enough, she got the same advice, but wasn't asked to make a follow up appointment for the fluid issue.  She was choosing to ignore the advice of taking away the paci.  I was starting to feel validated in my righteous indignation.

So what did I do?  I posted an update on Facebook to complain to everyone I know, asking if it would be totally oppositional to blow off the doctor's orders, cancel the follow up appointment and take the paci away before his 2-year check up.  After reading all 23 comments, I decided to do just that.

Until I chatted with one friend who recently took her 14 month old son's pacifier away with no problems.  He cried a little at bedtime the first day, then he didn't miss it.  Even when she tried to give it to him a couple of times to quiet him in the car during a meltdown - he wanted nothing to do with it.

This news gave me hope...although this was one of a ton of moms who commented, "It's your kid...do what you think is best!"

My decision was final.  I was going to ignore the doctor.

Then that night, I came home to a proud husband, announcing that he sneaked into Jason's room after he fell asleep and removed the pacifier.  !?!?!?!?  Somehow, I'd failed to mention my liberating decision to Mike as I struggled all day. (*sigh*)

I was so tempted to go back into his room and toss the paci onto the mattress.  But instead, I cut the tip off of his pacifier and put it back into the crib of my clueless, sleeping baby boy.

Notice the hole in the center...Jason wanted no part of this "broken" paci.

Sure enough, at 5am, he woke up asking for his paci.  Ryan wanted him to quiet down because he could go back to sleep, so he found a spare pacifier under the crib and gave it to him.  Which Jason was happily sucking when I went in to get him at 7am.  Grrr...

At naptime, I officially took it away.  Jason cried, but he was exhausted after waking at 5am, so he didn't cry for long.  He woke up mid-nap, crying again.  He didn't know how to put himself back to sleep, poor thing.  I went in to rock him, but he just cried, chanting, "Paci?  Paci, peese?  Ni-night?"  There was no consoling him. He was exhausted, I just put him back in bed, still crying.  It killed me. It was like he was in mourning...it was awful.  I couldn't take it, so I got in the shower.  Sometime before I emerged from my room, he cried himself back to sleep.

That night, he cried for less than 2 minutes and that was the end of it. He hasn't cried since, and it's been a full six days. He still asks for his paci at every nap and at nighttime, but accepts when I tell him, "We're all done with the paci.  It went bu-bye."  And he goes to sleep without a fuss.

I was not expecting this process to be so short and sweet, to be honest.  I wanted to wait until he was old enough to reason with.  Old enough to put the pacifiers in an envelope and leave them on the porch for the paci-fairy to take them to little babies who needed them. 

But, I guess it's over.  I'm still fairly unsettled about it all, probably because he still looks at me with longing eyes, twice each day, asking sweetly, "Paci, peese?"  Oh.  It breaks my heart.  Maybe, too, because he's officially grown out of a distinct phase of his childhood that he'll never return to. 

I'm sad just thinking about it.  My baby's not a baby anymore...!!!  But we're officially done with pacifiers in our house. Such a weird feeling.