Piya's Perspective

I know there are people who are passionately against pacifiers and others who swear by them.  I’m neither.  I can see reasons for both sides. 

That being said, I was very thankful that Simeon never wanted one.  He was just fine twirling his hair for self-comfort.  Caitlyn on the other hand – while copying her brother’s hair twisting – needed more.  At some point, I realized that she wasn’t actually using the night feeding for food. All she wanted was something to suck on.  Since I was exhausted and Ari was sleeping through the night, I decided I would give her a pacifier.  Sure enough, it worked.

Unfortunately, I’ve reached the point that had me hoping to never use pacifiers…the stopping point. 

I purposely kept pacifier use to sleeping only.  I gave one to the daycare for naptime and was disappointed when I found they were using it for more than just naps.  However, they apparently lost it on a buggy ride one day and never asked for another.  I actually found out when she moved up to the next class and the teacher said she had no idea Caitlyn used a pacifier – she slept at naps just fine without it.  It figured that she would still get fussy without it at night – arms outstretched reaching for it.  So it became an only-in-the-crib thing.

Then we moved her mattress out of the crib because she was trying to climb out.  I was tempted to take the pacifier at that point, but decided I would just do it when we moved her into a bed or when she could actually use words to say she wanted it.

The word came pretty quickly and the opportunity of quitting time showed itself not long after.

Over memorial day weekend, we stayed at a Lake Chelan lake house (thanks for the invite, C!).  Because my brother didn’t arrive until Saturday afternoon, Ari, his mother and the kids left a day before me.  After picking my brother up at the airport, I called Ari to see if he needed me to bring anything and, with Caitlyn nearby, he whispered ‘Paci’ over the phone.  I grabbed one on the way but decided to leave it in the car.  She managed to get to sleep the night before, so I wanted to see if we could continue while we were away from home.  It turned out relatively easy.

Then we came back home.

It wasn’t like she would go down easily before the trip, but I didn’t want to give her the pacifier just to get her to lay down…she needs to find another means of self-comfort at some point.  The weekend following Memorial Day, Ari turned the crib into a toddler bed, but unfortunately not a change of rooms as we originally were thinking; so more than a week with no pacifier she was still asking for it (though not as much) and still climbing out of bed and running out of her room instead of going down at night.

I’ve been trying the SuperNanny method of simply putting her back in bed without saying anything.  Unfortunately, I’m not as consistent as I need to be and Ari is usually so tired he just brings her into our bed and waits it out.  And while I know it isn’t an immediate cure and it takes more than one night…darn it, the TV show makes it look easy after the first night.

The other night even I had pacifier withdrawal and when Caitlyn said ‘Paci! Paci!’ I actually came to our room and asked Ari if I should just give it to her.  Of course he wasn’t much help…his response was to choose one of the following 1) go ahead and give it to her 2) guard her door 3) bring her in our bed until she calms herself down.

I then went and picked her up and put her back in bed without a word.

Yet one more week later and she’s at least stopped asking for the pacifier. Unfortunately, her body seems to be attached to a 10pm bedtime no matter when I attempt to put her down and she still won’t stay in her room either. 

So, while she seems to be off the pacifier I’m still going through withdrawal..