Bye Bye, Pacifier!

Cue Dora’s mission accomplish song:

Blake is off the pacifier for good! In just a couple more days, it will mark a whole month of being pacifier-free for him 😀

The weaning process was rather unexpected as I hadn’t planned on weaning him off the pacifier, yet.

Here’s a little background as to how Blake got started on pacifiers.

When Blake was only three days old, my grandma asked me for a pacifier to comfort him with. Thankfully (or not), the starter kit we bought came with one. From that day on, a pacifier (there were always four in the house) was always within reach. Blake never fell asleep without one, and never went to anywhere new without. It was his permanent trademark, I guess. It was constantly in his mouth, clipped onto whatever he was wearing that day.

These were taken when he was 12 months old.

As he grew older, his reliant on them grew too. The pacifier was actually his motivator in all our learn-to-crawl activities, back when he was still a little baby. Nope, no fancy crawling toys worked. Only the pacifier did.

When he could walk and climb, Blake would climb up to the table just to take the pacifier and put it into his mouth. Even after the birth of Nakayla, and after I introduced the pacifier to her when I found her sucking on her thumbs and fingers, Blake would still want his pacifier. A couple of times, I caught Blake taking the fallen pacifier from Nakayla’s mouth to put it into his. That’s how much he loves pacifiers.

I honestly had no idea how to wean him off, and felt cruel to be doing it to him – considering Nakayla uses it on and off too. It’s akin to some kind of mental torture to let him go cold turkey while seeing his sister using the very one thing he’s trying to quit! But somehow, we did it!

Cue Dora’s song again:

Here’s how the happy weaning surprise happened.

It all started on 15 February 2013, after Blake went to school. After my mom had taken Blake to school did I realize that the pacifier was left behind. I panicked and immediately sent a message to his teacher. I wanted to warn her of the impending disaster to come during the children’s nap time. Blake can be quite the horror when he throws tantrums, and combined with his strength, things can get very tough for us adults. But his teacher replied that she will pat him to sleep.

Subsequently, I received two more messages from her. One to inform me that Blake is sleeping, and another after nap time to let me know that he slept well during his nap time. I then told the teacher that maybe I should take this chance to wean him off the pacifier, and she said that they will try to not give him the pacifier while in school. And because I’m super lazy, I suggested to just leave the pacifier behind – one less thing to pack, one less thing to wash! – and she said, “Ok :)”.

When Sean returned home, I told him about what happened earlier, and we decided to continue with what I had accidentally started.

The first few nights were tough. It took Blake longer than usual to fall asleep, and we had to keep occupying him so that he won’t remember anything about something called the pacifier – out of sight, out of mind. After a whole week off the pacifier, I thought that maybe this was a fluke, and that surely he will want the pacifier when given. But no. The following days and weeks had seen Blake going to bed when asked to, sans the pacifier. Neither did he try to take it from the table nor from Nakayla’s playpen anymore! You simply cannot imagine how happy and proud I am of my boy!

Blake went from this…

To this!

Bye bye, pacifier! It was fun while it lasted 😀

Now that he’s off the pacifier, I guess it’s time to potty train him. I had been telling myself that potty training will only come after Blake is off the pacifier. Now, if only that was just as easy…

P.S. Blake was watching Dora when I was typing this. Hence, the ‘song’. Haha!