Pacifier Problems

I recently noticed that Lilia's front teeth seem to be moving forward a little bit from the line of her other incisors. I think this is probably due to her pacifier use. She doesn't use it all during the day, but she does use it to go to sleep for her nap and at night, and in fact I am pretty sure that she uses it the entire night long . . . I have tried pulling it out now and then after she is asleep but she has an incredible suction grip on that thing.

Anyway, long and short is, Thorsten and I agreed it's time to give up the pacifier due to the potential teeth issues. It's not really an urgent thing--a couple of weeks or even months are unlikely to affect her teeth much--but now seems as good a time as any, since any disruption in the routine when the new baby comes will be a lot more problematic than now, and if we wait till after we're all settled with that, it will be at least September. I thought maybe the coming week would be a good time to dig in and do it--we will be on vacation, so will have more time and (hopefully) more patience, will have more chance to catch up on our own sleep if things don't go well, and lots of distractions and exercise during the day to tire Lilia out.

In fact we ended up going cold turkey yesterday. Lilia has really wanted a Laufrad (one of those little bikes without pedals) for a long time, which seemed like a good bribe to get rid of the pacifier. Also yesterday was her last full day of daycare, and as of today she is taking her afternoon nap at home rather than in a room with 10 other kids.

It worked pretty well at first. We talked about it, Lilia agreed the exchange of pacifier for a Laufrad sounded good, and we waved "Tschuss" to the pacifiers before we went to the bike store. However, as expected, the reality hit at bedtime. Let me just say that it took two hours to get her to sleep, at least one of which was taken up with Lilia sobbing as if her little heart were breaking. Not to mention she started sucking on her fingers and chewing the blanket . . . Some of it was acting, but a good bit of it was real distress. Ouch. I don't know if it was worse for me, trying to console and distract her, or for Thorsten in the other room listening to her wails without being able to do anything. She did finally drop off, but spent a lot of the night tossing and turning, and finished up this morning wetting the bed, which she has never done before. (I don't think it was due to the emotional stress, but probably that she was just so worn out that the usual '"my bladder is full" sensation failed to wake her. Guess we'll see.)

This morning she was her usual chipper self and daycare went OK . . . but naptime was a replay of last night, and if anything, she was even more fixated on the absence of her beloved "Schnuller". It took a good hour to get her down . . .

I am trying to aid the process by offering her little toys as a reward for getting to sleep without her paci, and what worked last night was telling her an incredibly long and boring story about her own life ("Lilia goes to daycare. She opens the door. She takes one, two, three . . . . thirty-seven steps down the hallway . . . ") Unfortunately that failed to do the trick at naptime, and I ended up reciting a long list of "Who loves you."

I don't quite know the best way to proceed. I know darn well she's not emotionally ready to give the thing up, and I can't expect her to understand the teeth issue. I don't know if naptimes and bedtimes will continue as they are or get worse or (hopefully) get better soon. I suppose we can try to keep on going cold turkey for this week and if it looks like she's really unhappy during the day or regressing on other behaviors (like potty training) we could consider waiting with the paci weaning for a few more months. But I tell you this. I do NOT want to go through this a second time if I'm not convinced it's absolutely necessary to do so!