One mom asked the group's responses to her pediatrician telling her that pacifiers were not a good idea. Here is what she heard...


My guys lost interest in the pacifier between 3 and 4 months, go figure. But my sister's kids all used pacifiers. She cut each of them off cold turkey around six months. It only took about a week for each child to 'get over it.' Yes, she was tired that week. Not one of the three became thumb suckers either.

We took the pacifiers away from our b/g twins at four months- we did it cold turkey- they cried for the first night- and then that was it- I recommend going cold turkey.

Your doctor doesn't have twins! My dentists said it will not hurt their teeth. At age one year cut the pacifier, tell them it is broken.

I have heard the same thing: before the age of 1 year, cut the pacifier or break it in some obvious way, and say, "sorry, no more." And as the parent of two finger suckers, I say get rid of the pacifier as late as possible in the first year, lest they find their thumbs to replace it!

I know there are many schools of thought but I am surprised that your Dr. said that! My Dr. said...that the strong need to suck was natural and the 'paci' certainly helped us (a lot) in sleep training and helped the babies learn how to self-soothe.

Our daughter weaned herself when she discovered her thumb. She only sucks it to go to sleep. Our little boy would walk around all day with the pacifier in his mouth, if we let him, but we limit it to nap/bedtime. It has become a powerful cue for him that it is now time to sleep. We pluck it out the minute he is in a deep sleep and I am sure that, soon enough, he will wean himself as well.

There is no medical reason to do what your doctor is telling you to do. It is a personal issue with him with everyone. Ask him for evidence of damage. He will in fact find it difficult to answer this because the evidence about this is very much on the other side of what he is saying; it's psychological. Pacifiers use to be called 'soothers' in England. They let the child self-soothe; and this is a critical first step to emotional maturity. Keeping it in the crib is a good thing, we did that, but eventually, you will be faced with the baby asking to take it out of the crib with him or her. You don't need to involve your doctor in those parts of your parenting that are more progressive and less medical/traditional as he can't be expected to relate. Just one mum's opinion, good luck.

Get rid of them fast! At four months my girls were waking up every two hours because they lost their pacifiers and we spent the night running in to put them back in... We finally took them away and they discovered their fingers and now they sleep through the night (we also let them cry it out and it worked magic). Read Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." He explains how important it is to let children learn how to sleep on their own and develop healthy sleeping habits; it will change your life and your kids will sleep better, be more rested, and be happier babies. Now (at six months) they hardly want them anymore and I only use the pacifiers for emergency situations or occasionally to help them drift off to sleep after nursing.

I weaned my three boys, cold turkey, from pacifiers at three months. After three days, each one had forgotten about the pacifiers. I prefer to cold turkey anything that I do, since I just want to get it over with.

We got rid of the pacifiers at about 4.5 months when we let my girls (who were six weeks premature) cry it out to get them to sleep through the night. In my opinion, cold turkey is the way to go if you are going to sleep train (really, there's no other option in that sitution because you can't go back in to give them back the pacifier). I'd recommend doing both as long as your pediatrician thinks that they don't need to eat during the night anymore (by four months, for most babies, it's just habitual). One of my daughters eventually started sucking her thumb. The other one went back to the pacifier later, but we only give it to her overnight, never during the day. I didn't want to have one of those three year olds you see walking around with a "plug" in his mouth :). Once we broke her of the initial habit, the need for it didn't seem as strong when we gave it back.

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