3 ways to remove the pacifier without stress involving children

There comes a time when many parents wonder when it is appropriate to remove the pacifier from their child, also wondering if there are particular signs that suggest that the baby is ready to detach from an object that in many cases has accompanied him for the first years of his life.

You say:
it’s hard to hang out with children. You’re right.
Then add: because you have to put yourself at their level, lower, tilt, bend, make yourself small.
Now you are wrong. That’s not what tires you the most.
It is rather the fact that they are obliged to rise to the height of their feelings.
Pull, stretch, stand on your toes.
So as not to hurt them.”

Janusz Korczak, pediatrician – “When I become a child again”

On this theme it seems appropriate to start with a premise that illustrates in a brief but clear way what are the deep needs that the baby satisfies with sucking, taken from “The new child” by Marcello Bernardi, famous pediatrician author of over sixty scientific publications:

“The habit of sucking something, which does not necessarily have to be the pacifier or the thumb, but which can be anything, is usually referred to as a “vice” and regarded as a terrible source of misfortune. In fact, the consequences are quite modest, when there are, and are reduced to a deformation of the dental arch. But even such deformation does not always occur and if it occurs, it is not always due to the pacifier. Or not just pacifier. There may be hereditary factors, for example, that produce that maxillary conformation.

And he continues: “The reasons for sucking are deep and complex. When does a child desperately devote himself to the pacifier or his thumb? The answer is clear: when he is alone, when he is about to fall asleep, or, if he is older, when he is dejected or needs consolation. The child indulges in sucking when he lacks something, when he is unhappy. Now, the something he lacks is usually someone, a human presence.

Let’s take the example of the child who is about to sleep: he does not know that in a few hours his life will start again as before, that he will see the usual things and the usual faces again. He feels that with sleep comes a detachment, a leap in the dark, an abandonment of human company and especially of the mother.

With sleep, he feels loneliness coming .

Then he makes an effort to recall the mother figure and to make her present in something that he can dominate and keep close to him. But that’s not all: for an infant, sucking not only represents the pleasure of human contact, but also an essential exploration tool : everything that interests the baby, that attracts his attention or that arouses his enthusiasm calls into play the mouth: he also sucks to know .

When to remove the pacifier?

An age indicated to start reducing the presence of the pacifier does not exist, also because, as always, each child has his own character, his peculiarities, his family and his story.

A fortiori, therefore, you can not draw up a list of rules valid for everyone, (much less would it be a mistake to compare it to other children of his age or older brothers): it usually happens spontaneously around the age of two or three (or at least within four), or when the child begins to have more confidence in himself and manages to find new resources within himself to calm down and face daily frustrations.

In any case, a drastic detachment is absolutely not recommended: on the contrary, the abandonment of the pacifier should be a gradual step, so that the child slowly gets used to doing without it.

Before starting, we must first pay attention to the mood of the child, to the period he is experiencing: if there is any reason that does not make him calm and serene as he should, it is perhaps appropriate to postpone this further stress.

The first step of detachment

If, on the other hand, you think it is a phase in which the child is ready to face this moment of transition, the first step is to try to talk about it with him, trying to make him understand that he is growing up and mom and dad are sure that he will do very well without a pacifier.

In Denmark and in many northern European countries there is a tradition to say goodbye to the pacifier: it hangs on a tree, ” The tree of pacifiers “, a place to reach with one’s children to perform a real rite of passage together .

Tricks

Usually two types of stratagems are used to “convince” the child: some element outside the family (fairies, mice, elves) has come to take the pacifier and left a gift in exchange, or you try to make the child aware and slowly get him used to parting with it, for example by agreeing that he can only use it at home, or for sleep, or for travel by car.

You put it together in a small box and make the child the protagonist of his conquests, active and participatory.

After a period in which you have become accustomed to using it for fewer hours, you can set a date together to say goodbye to the pacifier, making this step of growth a further moment of complicity with the parents. Here are some ideas:

3 ways to remove the pacifier

1) Take it together to a place to which the child is particularly attached, such as a park, a forest, and create a beautiful fairy tale that makes him perceive this moment as magical and special. The little one will feel the protagonist of a story that he will live in first person together with mom and dad, ready to reassure him.

2) Organize a little party together with friends and grandparents to celebrate such an important milestone. A gesture of encouragement from mum and dad who once again, recognizing how much the little one is attached to his pacifier, support him, understand his difficulties and gratify him by helping him grow.

A greeting to the pacifier and at the same time a party to the child who has officially “grown up”: there is nothing more beautiful than celebrating together a new phase of the child’s life.

3) Let go of the pacifier to new adventures!

Even the pacifier, like the baby, has grown up and is ready for new adventures. So let’s give him wings to fly and explore the world, just like our child. Maybe he’ll want to go to the moon, go around the world, go into space. Or maybe it will be useful to some very young children, who knows… but the time has come to let it go: let’s tie the pacifier to a balloon and release it into the air, ready for new adventures!

A moment of growth

These are just a few examples of how to build a story or create a special moment to involve the child and face a moment of growth together. The important thing is to listen to the child to understand if he is really ready to detach or if we are forcing the hand, “imposing” an acceleration that does not correspond to his needs and his times but that makes him on the contrary, even more restless and disoriented.

Parents instead suggest, returning to the words of the pediatrician Massimo Bernardi in his “The new Child“, to “not make a tragedy”, a month more or less little changes, the important thing is that the child gradually discovers new tools in himself to cope with anxiety, frustration and bad mood without feeling the need for the pacifier: “Let’s make it clear that vices do not exist. They are an invention of certain educators of the traditional type, iron and all in one piece, grim and dangerous. “, parents are advised not to “make a tragedy of it”, one month more or less little changes, the important thing is that the child gradually discovers .

It may be that he just wants company. The child who calls and gets no answer ends up losing faith in the world. The trouble is that he loses it forever. Of course, I know very well that if a child is never answered before or after, he resigns himself and renounces to launch his appeals towards a world that does not listen to him so much. At this point, according to the educators I mentioned earlier, the child has become “good”. .”

We stay close to our children and let them “disturb” us, keep us awake. After all, you don’t need to cross any finish line before the others, much less prove something: in ten years no one will care at what age your child has done without the pacifier, he first.

The love with which we support them every day, and with which we try to understand their deepest needs, is a security and a resource that they will carry with them every day of their lives.