How To Get Rid Of The Pacifier

Are you dragging your feet and dreading the day where you have to take the pacifier away? I was too! Nervous about how naps and nights were going to go without the pacifier? Hey, me too! I have been there before so I totally get it. Trust me, my husband and I loved the pacifier as much as our son did! But we were approaching him turning two and the time just felt right to finally say good bye. He wasn’t practicing his words and he just seems way more lively when he didn’t have it in all the time! So I wanted to share how to get rid of the pacifier for parents who are ready to ditch it!

If you are feeling ready to knock the pacifier habit, then you are in the right place. I am here to tell you from my personal experience, it was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I thought I’d share what we did in hopes it can make the process easier for you. Pin below if you want to refer back or read later.

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Steps on How To Get Rid Of The Pacifier

First Tip: Make sure you are ready to commit

Habits are hard to break and it’s even harder if you aren’t willing to commit. So make sure you are ready to stick to your guns. Because it could take a little bit for your child of yours to forget about their beloved pacifier.

Second Tip: Start removing pacifier throughout the day other than naps & bed time

We did it cold turkey y’all. That seemed to work the absolute best. When we got him in the mornings, we hid the pacifier until nap time. If he asked for it or wanted it throughout the day, we would tell him we lost it. We pretended to look for it with him and then once he realized it was lost, he would forget about it. Other times, we would distract him with a toy. If he wanted something to chew on because his teeth were bothering him or just because he was used to sucking on something, we would give him a teether.

He asked for his pacifier for a few days after we took it from him during the day and then never asked for it again.

Third Step: Once we mastered the no pacifier during the day, we then worked on removing it from nap time.

This was harder as he associated his sleep with his pacifier. I would say it took a good week for him to not put up a fight for nap time. I’m talking reading a lot of books and lots of cuddles, sips of water, some snacks, a lot of stalling and even some crying before he would finally fall asleep. It’s like he didn’t get the cue for sleep because his cue was his pacifier.

So what we did was let him know nap time was approaching ten minutes before we would get him ready. We would then do snack, get his diaper changed, and then read a few books. We would have a few cuddles and say a prayer. Then after about a week of that solid nap routine, he didn’t put up a fight. The routine was his sleep cue instead of his pacifier.

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Fourth Step: Once we got the nap routine down without a pacifier, we then removed it from night.

Same thing happened. He was harder to put down for bed but he slept fine and throughout the whole night without his pacifier. The only thing that changed was the power struggle of getting him down for bed. Some nights it would take an hour. But it only lasted for a few days and then he was good. Until the two year sleep regression but that is a whole other topic for a different post.

Nights were definitely easier than naps. You could maybe just do naps/night at the same time to knock it out at once. We might give that a go with our second.

There ya have it! That is how we got rid of the pacifier habit. It was easier than we thought. We had some difficult times mainly with just naps and nights but it didn’t take as long as we thought it would. So if you are ready, try these tips out! Good luck, mama, as always you got this!! Drop comments below if you have tips to add or let me know how it goes when you put these tips to practice!