Pulling the Plug: The Lazy Mom’s Method to Ditching the Pacifier

Pacifier. Binky. Paci. Mom’s Guaranteed Night of Sleep. Whatever you want to call it, to a lot of kids this is the accessory of choice and Cooper’s beloved binky definitely fit the bill.

Cooper has always loved his binky and I have really never been in a rush to make him ditch it. Kyle, on the other hand, was pushing project bye bye binky starting around Cooper’s 2^nd birthday. I casually convinced him that, while I was on board, we should probably wait until Cooper turned 3 siting some random dental literature that stated the pacifier didn’t really affect kids’ teeth until they were 4.  Plus, we had already gotten him down to only naps and bedtime.

Either Kyle gave me way too much credit or he saw the panic in my eyes (or were those tears?), but he let me win this one. At the time, Cooper’s birthday felt like light years away. Now it’s right around the corner!

I have heard of so many cute and creative ways to give up the pacifier. There is the ever popular Paci Fairy that comes and takes your pacifiers in the middle of the night in exchange for a new toy. Some kids give theirs to Santa. When our sweet friend Addie turned 4, she gave Carrington all of her binkies because she needed them more. (Awww!)

All of these things sound awesome in theory but just thinking about them stirred up a feeling in me that I would classify on the scale somewhere between dread and extreme nausea. The kid does not like change. (And that is an understatement!)

From the title of this post, you’ve probably clued into the fact that we are now binky free. The method I used and am about to describe was neither cute nor creative. In fact, I would classify it as “The Lazy Mom’s Method to Ditching the Pacifier”. But, y’all, it worked! Read on…

Sometime in the fall, Cooper started chewing holes in the ends of his binkies. For those of you not as familiar to binky culture as we are, binkies lose all of their sucking power with the tiniest hole.

One by one the soldiers fell.

Every time a binky “stopped working”, as he put it, we would have him throw it away himself. Gradually, the crew of eight binkies began to dwindle. I kid you not; there were eight in his bed at one point plus reserves in the kitchen cabinet. Ridiculous.

I told Cooper that we couldn’t buy any more binkies, once they were gone they were gone. Kyle totally called my bluff on this, by the way, thinking I’d totally cave on this but that only added fuel to my fire. Maybe that was his intent, that sneaky guy.

Just this past weekend, Cooper was down to two binkies, one of which was hanging on by its BPA-free thread. I asked Cooper if he thought he was done with binkies and, to my surprise, he answered “Yes. I think binkies are for sister.” So, I put him to sleep without them and settled in for what I thought was going to be a long night. Hey, we were already sleep training Carrington so why not?!

I was so wrong. He slept that night with no problem and has only asked about his binkies once since Friday. Even then it was just to ask: “All of the binkies have holes in them, right?” I assured him this was the case and he moved on with life.

Now I can officially say we are DONE! It was just like pulling off a band-aide. Like really, really slowly, while angsting about it, pulling off a band-aide!