Mean birthday present

July 28, 2007

Last week was my oldest’s second birthday, and as a present, we took his pacifier. I guess we could have waited a few days, but now it’s too late. We can’t give it back to him. He’s having a hard time going to sleep, as we expected, but hopefully he’ll get over it sooner rather than later.

I’ve heard of several methods of removing a kid’s pacifier:

• Take his pacifier and let him see you throw it in the trash bin, then throwing the trash bin out.
• Try to fool him by adding pepper to the pacifier. Keep fooling him. Wash the pacifier and let him see it, then secretly add the pepper again.
• Remove it in stages, that is, first only let him use it at home, then only let him use it at nap time, then remove it completely.

We actually took a similar route to the last one. Recently my kid would only use his pacifier during nap or to sleep at night.

It’s been hard on all of us. Watching your kid cry for what it seems an hour or two (actually 10 - 15 minutes) is quite painful, especially knowing you’re the one that caused it.

But it’s for his own good.

Posted in Family