Eliminating Pacifier Use in 5 Month Old

Hello,
If he is falling a sleep with it and it is soothing him then why take it away from him? Let him have it for as long as he wants. By 2 or 3 years of age would be a good tiime to take it from him, not 5 months but it is up to you.

Good Luck

kids learn to self-sooth when they are ready developmentally. I would not try to shove a 5 month old in to "self-soothing", but would do it slowly and lovingly. There are many great tips on how to do this in The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantly.

It sounds like some kids adjust well enough to suddenly dropping pacifier use...but do you have an idea of what your son is going to do to "self-soothe"? People seem to throw this term around a lot. Like babies have the ability inside somewhere and it just pops out when we need it to.

Does he already self soothe some way in other situations? If so...you could encourage that behavior at sleep time. Or teach him to suck his own thumb or fingers? Or soft blanket...is that an ok substitute? I guess what I'm asking is ...do you have a plan to help him out?
I 'll admit, I feel since we bring little infants here...we have an obligation to help them out of tight spots ...esp when we helped create the very situation (for whatever reason) we now, do not like.

i hate pacifiers. my boys didnt use them but my grandosn who i am raising was a preemie and they had one on him at the hospital all the time he was in there for a month. he neer used them at my house and when hewould occasionally spend the night at his other grandmas hose she would give him one after i had told her not to. ithink its just plain lazy. babys should be cuddled and rocked instead of sticking a plug into their mouths. when he came home and wanted one, we simply didnt have one and he got rocked and cuddled and loved instaed

Our pediatric dentist suggested taking my son's pacifier away at 9 mos. We cut part of it off and he didn't like it anymore.

Why are you worrying about this now at 5 mo? Do/did your 4, 3, and 1year olds still use the binky??

My son used the pacifier and I just made sure it wasn't plugged in his mouth all day long, only in the crib or car rides, as needed, just as you are doing. I didn't think it was good for him to have it plugged in all day long, when it would be better for him to be learning how to make sounds and talk and all that.

I too was worried about my son being "stuck" on the binky but it just naturally and gradually lessened to the point when he was 12 months old and I realized we hadn't seen the binky in days! So, now I say, don't worry.
Even if he did become stubbornly attached to his binky, I'd not fight it when he is still such a baby, wait till around 1yo. But I dont think he will be one of those preschoolers with a binky still plugged in, since he's only using it at bedtimes, etc.

Hi. Our daughter was just over 2 when we got rid of hers and it only took 2 days. For us, it was worth holding onto. Seeing that you have older children, you know that the teething has just begun (if not already). The binky helped so much with the teething! And it was a very smooth transitition when we finally took it away. People told us to get rid of it sooner as it would be easier to do the sooner we did it. But at 2, it was so easy. So I would expect the same for a 5 month old if not less than 2 days.

My kids all lost thiers when they were 3 months. We just took it away. For one of them, it was no big deal.
With the other two, we had a bad couple of days, but it didn't last more than two. At 5 months, he'll be fine. Way to go and good luck!
C.

I eliminated the pacifier with both my girls at 3 1/2 to 4 months old. I did this with my first out of necessity because she kept spitting it out all night long and waking up to get it popped back in. My second didn't really like it as a newborn and never got super attached. I combined taking the paci away with sleep training. I knew at 3 1/2 months or so, I was going to do interval sleep training to help my babies learn to self sooth and sleep through the night. I didn't want to have to listen to my babies cry twice (once for sleep training and once for paci elimination) so I did it all in one shot. It only took a couple of nights and once they didn't rely on it at night, they didn't need it during the day either.

Okay so here is the draw back... both my girls are now thumb suckers. This is how they learned to self sooth at such a young age. Keep in mind that you can't take a thumb away like a paci. My daughter is now 2 and still sucking her thumb. Had she been using a paci, we probably could have eliminated it around 1 1/2 or 2 years old. She doesn't have major dental problems yet, but her 2 front teeth are getting pushed out from thumb sucking.

I am not sure if I would go back and do it differently. It is all a personal choice. However, my advice is that if you are going to take it away all together and you are not willing to wait until he is a toddler, then do it now while he young.

My 5 month old just recently started spitting the paci out. I stopped giving it to her and she is doing just fine. I also have a 2 year old who did the same thing at 6 months and never started sucking her thumb or anything.

Hi there, with my twins (2 years old) we cut the nipple off about half way down. They literally went off their binkies the next day with no drama. there was a few rough nites until they fell asleep, but you can't give in, as much as you would like to. We found this an easy way to break the habit. With my older daughter, I just took it away from her while she was sleeping one day, and she never asked for it again. Each child is different with their attachment, but I hope this helps you. There's hope - all my kids LOVED their binkies and they went off them fairly easily :)

God Bless,
C.

We waited for my son to give up the "bubbie" for a long time! He seemed to need it and I know I did for sanity sake! So I was not going to take it from him. Once he turned 2 and could understand things better we went to just nap and bed time use and then right after his baby sister was born we told him he was to big for the bubbie and that he needed to give them to his sister and that we would take his favorite one and do something special. We took him to build a bear and he got a dino and put the bubbie inside and that was all she wrote!
BTW his teeth are perfect and he chats up a storm so I don't pay much mind to those who say the pacifiers are bad for them!

My son had his pacifier until he was 18 months old. When the new baby came along I thought it was time for him to give it up, all i can say is out of sight out of mind.
He did cry a bit for the first few nights because he liked it for sleep times.
I just took all of them and threw them in the trash.
Once and a while he would find an old one at a friends house and would just have him throw it away.

I say, go cold turkey. We took the pacifier away from my daughter at 9 months old because she was rarely using it. She, too, had it to fall asleep and in the car. We were actually on vacation when we took it away. Well, to be honest, she lost all of them in the condo, at Sea World, etc. and I refused to buy new ones. She never complained, even on the drive home!

The first day I would say is the worst! And about a week in the car was bad...after that not too bad at all :)

Hi JF, I say stop it now and cold turkey. My daughter didn't need one at all, my son had one until he was 5...yes...FIVE! So I'm sure he will cry a bit, but unless you want to be tracking that thing for the next however many years, I would stop it now. Good luck to you!!!

Don't take away the pacifier until 1 year. The APA has found it helps to reduce SIDS. Definitely have him off by 2 to avoid orthodontic issues, but not before one. Good luck!

It took a little bit with my kids too. It is hard. With my older one I told him those were for babies and his baby brother needed them and that worked but he was old enough to understand words. My younger one chewed them all and they broke so I just told him they were broken. He didn't like it when they had holes in them and he lost interest. But my kids were older, a 5 month old is not developmentally going to compute other than give me my pacifier!

Why so soon? The National Pediatric Association actually recommends pacifier use until at least 6 months old to help prevent SIDS.

Also, babies do usually respond well to pacifiers because of the sucking; it is a comfrot thing and a stimulant. It is actually a good thing for their brain because of the stimulation.

Anyways, your baby is still little, maybe waiting until he is at least 1 would be better.

Maybe just cold turkey but he is so young.......

A baby this age I don't know what I would recommend, ask your pediatrician.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

When my son was about 9 months old, I stopped nursing and my son found a pacifier in a toybox and since he didn't have the soothing suck anymore he fell in love with the pacifier. When he started getting really attached, I saw that I might have a problem and just threw all the pacifiers in the garbage. I quickly learned that it was not a big deal. When the pacifier was out of sight, it was out of mind. He did not suck his thumb or anything else for that matter, he was fine.

You will probably find that he he will be fine when you get rid of it. He is so young it probably won't even matter.

I had this with my 1st child...he went from pacifier to sucking his thumb! Which in my opinion is worse...now he is 10 yrs old and still sucks his thumb! I say wait it out a little longer.