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pacifier
My little boy just turned 3 in December. We decided to give up his pacifier after his first trip to the dentist. The dentist traded some items out of his treasure tooth for his pacifiers. My son willingly handed the pacis over and he has been in agony since then! It was a week ago yesterday and it is still so fresh in his mind. We had already eliminated paci use to bedtime and nap and carrides. It's been torturous! He is balking at going down for a nap and going to sleep at bedtime. It is taking around 1 to 2 hours to get to sleep. This child never faught sleep before! Some days he has gone without a nap, which is very unusual for him as well. After the first 2 days without his paci he licked his bottom lip so much he got a chapped lip. Last night I woke up to the sound of him sucking on his arm in his sleep. Does anyone have any advice for me? He is a nervous wreck without those silly pacis. We've already gone a week without them, I don't want to turn back now, but everyone says it gets easier, and he has not forgotten!
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we did the exact same thing with our son when he turned 3 and it was too much. children suck their thumbs and have dummys til they are much older than this, sticky out teeth may not be very nice thought but some people get them anyway without sucking thumb/dummy. its not the end of the world and if he still has a dummy at 15 (!) then yes you should worry but thats really unlikely isn't it!
we gave our son back his dummy and he went back to being a relaxed confident child who happily went to bed instead of an anxious teary child who didn't know how to get himself to sleep without a dummy. (because he also had it only at bedtime)
we tried giving it up again at 4 and let him choose a toy and the dummy fairy would take his dummy away. the first week or so were difficult because he wanted to get his dummy back but after that he was fine. he also a few weeks after was distraught because he was poorly or hurt himself and the only way i could think of to comfort him was to give him a dummy although he hadn't asked for it. it comforted him straight away and i thought that would be the end of it and he would be back on the dummy but the next night he asked for it and we said no and he was ok about it. another time he was really poorly and distraught and i asked him if he wanted to borrow one of his baby brothers dummies and he said no so we definately cracked it and he sleeps fine now.
good luck with this cos i know how hard it is!
she LOVED her dummy - and we discussed giving it up loads with her - but she wouldn't.
then just after xmas she got a sore lip.
when we were at the doctors for something else he mentioned that the dummy could have given her the sore lip - and maybe she should give up dummies now as she is such a lovely big girl. she came home all serious - and repeaing the doc's words - and she has NEVER had it back yet! she was only using it at night for sleeping - but i think she must just have been ready.
she does think she is a big girl - and her 19month old sister was pointing at her callling her baby when she had the dum in!
i was nervous to take it off her - but now i think it was a good thing she did it all by herself.
the getting rid of the dummy thing is so-oooooo hard isn't it!!!!!