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This seems to be a very popular question from moms out there. I don’t think there is a clear cut off for age appropriateness of pacifiers; but If I’m being honest, when I see a 4 year old with one, I have an inner cringe. However, I’m a firm believer in “your kid, your rules”, so I support any parents decision to let their child have one for how ever long they’d like. But, I’ll make this my “Ask the Mom” poll over in the side bar so you gan get the feel of what other moms think. Now, when you’re ready, I have some good ideas to help them break the habit.
My kids gave them up on their own when they started solid foods. Well, I just stopped giving them to them when they started solids and they didn’t complain, so was that them or me? Not sure. I thought I was going to have a problem with Liza, but it turns out she wasn’t really a binkie-aholic, she just considers everything hers.
Liza with her binkies at 2 months:
1) The binkie fairy. Set a date with your child & mark it on the calendar. That night have him gather up all of the pacifiers and put them in a bag for the fairy. The fairy then leaves an item the child has previously picked out in place of the bag. This is very much along the lines of “tooth fairy”.
2) Cut the nipples off of the pacifier a little bit at a time. When they can’t get the right amount of suckage, the child will get tired of trying and give up on her own.
3) My favorite way that I’ve heard of is to gather up all the binkies, pacifiers, pacies, whatever you call them and take your child down to the local hospital nursery to donate them to the new babies that have been born. The nurses play along (you can even call them ahead of time so they’re prepared) and when your gone, they just throw them away. This would probably boost your child’s self esteem too, to help out the babies. (plus you get to look at the sweet newborns!)
4) Some parents use the “Make it taste bad” approach. In theory, why would you put something in your mouth if it tastes bad, right? Someone please explain that to my kid who won’t touch a corn dog but heads straight for the dog food if the door is left open. If you’re going to try this, ask your doctor what products he recommends.
5) If you don’t want to go “cold turkey”, set binkie rules. Such as: only at nap and bed time. You can gradually cut out the nap and then bed when he’s ready.
You can help by reading books about breaking the habit for a couple of weeks before the big event. Surprisingly, there are more books out there than I thought!
It’s Time to Give Up your Pacifier
Not every method will work for every child, you know your son or daughter best. If one way doesn’t work, try a different one! Stay strong!
I was not going to do binkies! Or bottle feed with formula! I was adamant. Then the second night in the hospital when S wouldn’t stop crying, and I tried to nurse her for AN HOUR and all she did was chew on me and cry, so DH said she must be hungry and we needed to feed her. I said, No! She doesn’t need to eat for a couple of days. If we’re going to break a rule, we’ll break the pacifier rule. So we did. And as soon as she took it, she stopped crying and went to sleep. My poor nipples…
I took her bottle away at 1 year, and her pacifier the next week (I’m a meanie).
Baby R had a binkie from the get-go, though she was never super attached to it. She gave it up on her own around 7 or 8 months, I think? The bottle, though – that was tough. She struggled with giving it up. But I was glad I did it at a year again, because if I had waited it would have been harder.
If either of the girls had started sucking their thumb, I would have given them back the binkies. But they didn’t. So they were fine.
NotJustAnotherJennifer recently posted..My First Time
We went through quite a time weaning our twins off of their binkies(they are 4 now). When it came time for them to go (we had started trying to get rid of the binkies at 2) the twins were almost 3. We fought tooth and nail to get them gone but they were so attached. So we went to Toys R Us, had them each pick out a toy(within reason) and had them hand the cashier their binkies as payment. They understood that the binkies were going away but enjoyed that they were not walking away empty handed.
It worked like a charm. They still asked for them every now and then but it really was a miracle how well it went. Had we just taken them away and thrown them in the garbage it would not have gone so well. Our new little guy just turned a year in June and his doc assures me that it is fine for him to keep the binkie until he is 2. Well, I guess we will just be ready for another trip to Toys R Us when his binkies time is up. 
Great idea! Totally worth a new toy!