top of page
Writer's pictureElizabeth Eirwood

How We Weaned from Paci in Four Days

Updated: Aug 4, 2022


This post may contain affiliate links. All experiences and opinions are my own.


When Romi was 15 months old, I noticed that his bottom teeth were starting to turn inwards. For months, we had been working to limit paci to only sleep times. I decided it was time to speed up the weaning process. We did it within a week, and it was much easier than I expected. Here was my method:


Step 1: Three days beforehand, I started soaking Romi’s pacis in vinegar. He made a face every time they touched his tongue, but he still sucked on them. My goal was to make the pacifier less appealing so that saying goodbye wouldn’t be as hard. It worked, but I think you could also successfully wean without this step.


Step 2: We talked about the paci fairy, when she was coming and that she would take his pacis and turn them into toys. We also read the book Pacifiers are not Forever to help him understand the concept.


Step 3: On the day of the paci fairy’s arrival, I collected his pacis, a cardboard box and told him it was time to say bye bye. He gave each paci a suck, and then I asked him to put them in the box. I didn’t push it and let him work through it in his own time. He started to cry and I held him. Finally, sitting in my lap, he tossed the last paci in the box. We folded up the box and he carried it out to the porch. Letting him do it by himself and in his own time was really important for making it a momentous not traumatizing event.


Later when he was busy playing, I took the pacis out of the box and replaced them with gifts from the paci fairy. I also cut the nipple off one of his pacis and put the plastic end in the box to help him comprehend that paci was gone. Having that visualization was big for him. A few times he asked me to fix paci, but when I reminded him that paci was all gone he moved on. Later that day I threw the plastic end away.


One of the gifts from the paci fairy was a teether that he could use as a replacement for the oral fixation. For several weeks he fell asleep with the teether in his mouth. He couldn’t suck on it, so it was a good in-between weaning option.


All in all, weaning from paci was so much easier than I had anticipated. Give this method a try, and leave a comment to let me know how it went.


Cheers!






 


28 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page