Bye-Bye Pacifier

For quite a while my wife and I have been talking about ways of getting our son weened off the pacifier especially when it comes to him sleeping at night. As you would know from my previous blog was something that my wife and I would do religiously especially because he was a co-sleeper. He would wake up quite often upset looking for it in the middle of the night which would usually cause my wife and myself to get out of our comfy bed to get it as well as rock him back to sleep. To make matters worse before my son turned one years old we would often we ridiculed from some people we were close to that would always point out  or suggest him not using a pacifier anymore, sometimes even taking it out of his mouth. As parents especially very protective parents my wife and I would respectfully become very defensive. As outsiders looking in to parents making them feel bad or uncertain on how there raising there children would cause any parent to be self defensive especially if an outsider isn't aware or respect that the way you care for your children may not be the way they cared for their own.

A few weeks ago while my son and I were home alone we decided to give it a try since my wife wouldn't be home for a while. It was the perfect time because my son was due for a nap and would always fall asleep with his pacifier.Needless to say it failed because I couldn't take him crying and decided to give in which in my favor worked because I got him to sleep and would have to work harder to achieve it without the pacifier later that day. When my wife arrived home I informed her that I'd given in so that I could get him to sleep and of course she laughed at me but together we decided it was time for him to give it up. I informed my wife that he was having a love affair with his pacifier and I was ready to end it. So on Friday night the same day I failed at not giving him his pacifier we attempted it again after his bottle and after a few tears it was a success. Not only was it success but he made it throughout the entire night without it and everyday there after with no problems. Trust me there have been many times when I wanted to give in just to ease my own pain of having to hear him cry but my wife has been firm in ensuring we didn't give in and because of her it has been a huge success.

Before we decided to go through the process of him no longer using his pacifier it was extremely difficult and we'd talked many times about what we would do or what we could do to ensure it would be a success. But there were many times were it was very difficult even after only a few days that we wanted to give it to him or we felt bad for taking it away from him if he wasn't ready especially with seeing kids older then himself still with pacifiers. But we knew and understood that he'd only began to use it as something else to chew on for comfort with him teething or something we used to keep him from being upset or even yelling and talking loud. 

Going through another milestone with him has made me realize that it's important for parent's to do things only when it's right for them and there child. It's not up to the judgement of others to pressure you to doing something that you or your child aren't ready for no matter how old or young they are. 
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