Paci update - are we there yet?

I feel like the journey with Silas to be done with a pacifier is similar to a never-ending car ride.  You feel like you have been in it for days and it's really only been a few hours.  He was obviously not ready to be done with it and I was not ready for him to be done with the pacifier so this has been a lot more difficult of a transition for everyone involved than it was with Isabella. 

Isabella used her pacifier to go to sleep.  She soothed herself with it sometimes while she was awake but by the time she was biting holes in it she had found other ways to soothe herself.  She had several stuffed animals, babies and music makers that she was attached to by then and so her entire comfort didn't need to come from the pacifier.  Silas, on the other hand, has nothing.  He never warmed to a stuffed animal or anything other than the pacifier.  Yes, he loves those muslin blankets, but nothing compared to his dearest pink pacifier.  He used it for comfort, to go to sleep and to stay asleep. 

He has always been more of a 'biter' of things than Isabella ever was so I should have seen this coming that he would be biting holes in his pacifier earlier than she did but I was totally and completely caught off guard.  And yes, I understand that I was probably caught off guard more because he will be my last biological baby probably and I want him to stay a baby forever.  I'm going to leave that subject alone right now because if I think about it too much I will probably cry. 

Just to recap what has happened in the last few days in one sentence - life has been a challenge.  Once Corry cut the end off so Silas wouldn't choke if he bit off a bigger piece, Silas would no longer have anything to do with that pacifier.  We quickly realized that letting him see it was making him more and more upset as well.  I figured that he would take to it like Isabella had and just wear it on his finger but that didn't happen.  He acted like he didn't know what to do with it and kept having temper fits about it.  Durin one of his fits he took it outside, got mad and threw it down and so I left it in the garage.  It stayed out there for days until it got moved somewhere.  I need to track it down and save it like I did the one for Isabella. 

Needless to say, he is a lot more angry and has a lot shorter of a temper than he had when he was using the pacifier, but everyday seems to be getting better.  He is having fewer and fewer episodes when I would have previously let him have the pacifier so we are making progress.  Slowly but surely... Pray for us in the upcoming days as we are nearing the week mark and then I think that we will be over the worst of it. 

When did your kids stop using a pacifier? 

The paci – a love story come to an end.

Before I had children and even while I was pregnant with Isabella, I never wanted to give my child a pacifier.  I always heard from other people how difficult of a habit it was to break and I never really wanted to start that if I could avoid it.  However, when Isabella came into the world, it seemed everyone was interested in her having one as a soother and so it came to be.  And she loved it.  She took to it almost immediately and was in love with it for over 18 months.    

Once I gave her the pacifier, I never really had an issue with it.  If she wanted it, I gave it to her because I figured that she was only a baby for such a short time and eventually she would break the habit.  We actually decided to break that habit sooner than I thought because she started to use it as a teether and not so much a soother anymore and bit the end off of one of them.  We gave her another and she did the same thing shortly after that.  At that time we decided that she was done.  We were not going to keep buying pacifiers so she could destroy them.  We decided that we would cut that one and just see what happened.  My husband cut the tip off of one of them because we didn’t want her to choke if she kept biting that hanging piece of it off and we gave it to her like it was normal.  She hated it, but she still held onto it.  She would stick her pointer finger through the end of it and still suck on it.  I am not going to lie but at that point I had a lot of anxiety that we were creating a ‘finger sucker’ child in this process.  For over a week she still slept with it but she always had it on one of her fingers for the entire night.  Then after a week, one night while she was sleeping it fell under the bed and she didn’t realize.  The next morning we put it in her dresser and it has been there ever since.  I can’t bring myself to get rid of it and will probably have it as a keepsake.  It’s one of the last real reminders that I have of her as a baby and not as the ‘big girl’ that she is now. 

Unfortunately, my son is now in this same boat.  Isabella was never a bad teether.  We really didn’t even know when she was cutting teeth ever.  She didn’t really cry more or have any outward signs at all.  He, on the other hand, is an awful teether and has been since his first tooth.  He chews on everything, slobbers buckets before he cuts a tooth, runs a fever with each one and is just miserable.  As of late, that chewing has been on his paci, and last night he chewed a hole in his second paci.  In an effort to be fair and realize that he is a big boy now (he is 18 months now) we have decided that we will treat him like Isabella when it comes to the paci and my husband cut the tip off and gave it back to him.  He was heartbroken.  He cried.  Like, for real crying.  And because he was crying like that I started crying.  My husband justified it that he doesn’t use it at night normally and really only wants it when he wakes up so it shouldn’t impact his sleeping.  I am hoping that this will be as easy of an ordeal as it was for Isabella but he is usually more of a fighter so I am not going to hold my breath.

I will keep everyone posted on his progress to becoming a big boy. 

-Sara