We Did It! ...... But We Wouldn't Do It Again.

I knew from the moment we started pushing a pacifier on Conner that the day would come when we would have to take it away. I didn't care at all. I figured, hey a week of crying and torture is nothing compared to the months of better sleeping because of it. He always seemed to sleep better with a pacifier, but that dang kid could not figure out how to keep it in his mouth. He was seven months (7 months old!) before he was able to suck on a pacifier and keep it in his mouth. He was a decent sleeper before that, but a PERFECT sleeper after.

Now since he had lived 7 happy months without having a pacifier much during the day, we were pretty good about not letting him have it all the time. It was reserved for times when he was being loud and needed to be quiet, like at church, and for when he was cranky. And then once he was happy again we took that pacifier right out of his mouth. So when we no longer allowed Conner to have a pacifier when he was awake, at 13 months old, it was no big deal. He got upset a little during sacrament meeting the first two Sundays, but other than that he didn't care.

I read somewhere that between 20-22 months old is a good time to take away the pacifier completely and I heard a couple of people say that their pacifier-loving kids were totally fine with it being taken away around that age. So that's what I was aiming for. A couple of months ago Cade and I began getting stricter with the pacifier. For example, Conner usually wakes up before we want to so then we bring him into our bed hoping he will go back to sleep. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't, but we stopped letting him bring the pacifier with him. It became something that he could only use in his own crib.

Let me back up and tell you about Conner's sleeping habits. We usually put him to bed about 8:30 with no routine at all. If it was bath night he got a bath to be clean, but other than that it was just get in your pjs and brush your teeth and good night. He was totally fine with it. He practically jumped into bed so he could have his pacifier and never cried when we put him down. Naps were the same way. He didn't have a specific nap time, it just happened when he was acting tired. Sometimes we would be gone till later in the day so his nap would be late, or I had to do something later so his nap would be early. He didn't care. As long as he had his pacifier he just laid down and went to sleep, for about 3 hours. I figured once we took away the pacifier it would be hard for him to take a nap and they may even be shorter. Boy was that an underestimation.

As Conner approached 20 months I began taking away his pacifier after he fell asleep at night so he could practice not having it all night. For a whole week he never woke up once and the only thing left was to take it away completely. So that next Sunday Conner fell asleep on the way home from church. Since he went to sleep without it we kept it out of his crib so he wouldn't have it at all. After about 45 minutes he woke up screaming. I figured we needed to practice not giving it to him so that he goes back to sleep without it, so I wouldn't let him have it. He screamed and screamed and screamed, for about an hour. He wouldn't lay down, he wouldn't play, eat, anything. Nothing calmed him down until he just got over it. Then Cade said that since we had just gone through that we should just take away the pacifier for good that day. So we did. That night, just before bed we cut his pacifier and showed him that it was broken. He had a sad face but bravely went and threw it away. He went to sleep very well that first night. He needed some extra lovin, but didn't cry much. I couldn't believe it, it was so easy.

The next day he refused to take a nap, not surprising. He eventually crashed out for about a half hour on a walk or something. But at bedtime he still did pretty good. Then the next day he again wouldn't take a nap and by this point he was exhausted and at bedtime was having a fit. And so the week went on, getting worse and worse, due to the extreme exhaustion. There was absolutely no nap taking unless he fell asleep in the car or stroller (or the one time Cade climbed INTO the crib with him and pretended he was asleep until Conner gave up and went to sleep himself) and even then he would wake up waaaayyyyyy too soon and just be screaming. At night he was very angry about going to bed and cried a lot. I don't like to let him scream on his own for more than 20 minutes if he is showing no signs of calming down. So we tried to read to him to put him to sleep or at least get him tired but it didn't help much. Then we would be going in there a few times to comfort him after he screamed for so long and eventually he would fall asleep in our arms. And you know, that is mostly what I had expected so I was doing ok with it. But once a week came and went I was getting a little tired of it.

This is from that week. He was eating raisins and was getting down from the chair when he just couldn't go on. Of course he woke up soon after that and wouldn't sleep again that day.

Week 2 is when we were in Atlanta so it was just like any trip, not much of a nap, staying up too late. But I figured at least he was getting good practice of not using the pacifier still even if the schedule was way off. And unfortunately once we got home I had to work for 3 weeks straight so Conner was going to his babysitter at various times and still not getting a chance to get on a good nap schedule.

By the middle of the third week Conner had made small improvements with going to bed at night. I spent a lot of time reading to him while he laid in his crib and then left once he was just about asleep. He still hadn't taken a nap over 2 hours and most of them weren't even 1 hour. (Remember this is a kid who was just taking 3 hour naps just about everyday.) By this point he was really getting on my nerves. He was obviously more cranky than ever before but no longer acted tired by rubbing his eyes or leading me to his crib like the good old days and I was losing patience. We decided that if by the end of the third week things hadn't improved then we were giving him back that freaking pacifier. I'm very against giving things back like that and I didn't want to do it after 3 whole weeks, but I seriously wasn't liking this kid much anymore.

After the third week nothing really changed but we never bothered giving the pacifier back either. He started to make SMALL improvements day by day. Now we are at day 30 post pacifier, just over 4 weeks. The nights are good again. I spend about 10 minutes reading to him and then leave. He has been crying for about 1 minute after I leave, except tonight he didn't cry at all!! But we STILL have a long way to go with naps. The babysitter reports that he has led her to where he sleeps at her house and volunteered to get in bed one time. And sometimes he falls asleep with her daughter while they watch a movie or something. But for us he only falls asleep in the car or the stroller. Part of the problem is I haven't been home enough to really work on it, so I have hope that maybe one day he will take a nap like normal, but for now I'm thankful that there is at least one way for him to fall asleep and that he sometimes will sleep for 2 hours. The longest nap he has taken was 2 hours and 15 minutes.

First try at painting. This is before taking away the pacifier, to remind myself of better days.

Looking back, I would say that Conner was not ready for the pacifier to be taken away. He barely even cared that it was gone, as in he only asked about it a couple of times and after we reminded him that it broke he didn't care. But clearly it was the key to his sleep and maybe if we had waited a few more months he could have managed better. Maybe not, there's no way to know. I've never heard anyone say that it took their kid this long to get over it. I expected a week, I had no idea that a whole month later we would still be working on this. So just in case you are wondering, if I could go back in time, I would still push that pacifier on Conner at 7 months because it made the next 14 months wonderful, but I would not have taken it away yet. 

These are actually before taking away the pacifier. He decided the only way to ride in the stroller was in the basket. We got a few strange looks walking down the road.

He's so comfortable he just fell asleep in there. Sometimes I think he still misses the womb.