Pacifier

Humans are born with the natural instinct to suck. It's a survival skill. The act of sucking helps soothe and relax babies. It's just part of being a human.

I read a lot before having Summer. I was nervous, very nervous, about being a parent. I didn't know what I was doing and relied heavily on published books. Well, in my readings, all signs pointed against pacifiers. This reason and that reason and blah blah blah. Well, Summer had a strong urge to suck and for about the first month of her life, I was her pacifier. That wasn't so much the problem until she developed *severe* acid reflux and would cry all the time. I pacified her myself until we slowly, but surely gave way to the pacifier. She wasn't obsessed with it, but it worked like nothing I've ever seen. We would put it in her mouth and she would melt away into sleep instantly. That, my friends, is a thing of beauty to the parent of a baby.

Well, her attachment was strong from the beginning and grew stronger as she got older.

She never had it during the day. Since she turned 1, we only allow it for sleeping and never outside the bed. But, around the beginning of 2011 just after her baby brother was born, she was obsessed with it, finding ways to go to bed just to get a hit. So, we hid it. We found her climbing on her dresser to retrieve it. GASP!! So, we called it off. One day, with absolutely zero preparation and zero planning, we clipped the tips off of 3 pacifiers. That night, we brought them to our devastated daughter. She was a new big sister learning to deal with her new role and learning to share her parents with another very fussy kid. She saw them and she understood what we told her about how they were all broken. She understood that we could not fix them. We were heartbroken too, but it felt very necessary.... so we went with it.

Days passed. She did not ask for her pacifier, because she knew they were broken. Her behavior got worse and she saw no incentive to sleep. She didn't WANT to sleep. She stalled for everything related to sleep. A few weeks later, she did not stay in bed for naps. And, in the middle of the night, she began calling for us like she was 10 months old again. We went a few times, but then we weren't really doing anything for her, so we stopped answering her calls right away. So, she started screaming.... and running out of her bed and bedroom. She would run around screaming in a pitch dark house at 3am with no direction in sight. We tried everything in the book because we didn't understand why our beautiful child turned into a demon at night. We tried to quiet her, but she was defiant. So, we tried "time out" type strategies at 3am on a whim. She would often wake up at that time and not go back to sleep. She averaged the amount of sleep of a college student... at less than 2 years of age.

Finally, we broke down. We finally connected it to her pacifier. Granted, all this happened weeks after the pacifier "breaking". We figured we'd have the worst behavior immediately after. Because I was dealing with an equally fussy newborn, Ramis would spend the nights in her room. He would lie on the floor next to her bed, easing her out of her fears. He would sit in the rocking chair next to her bed until she felt eased enough to go back to sleep. He was patient; so, so, so patient.

We were getting ready to send Summer back to daycare after Zayan was 6 weeks old. She still didn't have her pacifier back. I had an epiphany: I just want to give it back to her. I called Ramis at work and told him... and he agreed. So, I did as soon as we got home for nap. I told her I fixed it. She took it, but didn't look at me like I was a god or anything. She just took it.

However, she still had to be eased out of a lot of her new behaviors. It took weeks and weeks, but with a lot of patience and her good old orange pacifier, we got our baby girl back.

And then, months later, she went to the dentist. He told her-- repeatedly-- if she gives up her pacifier she'd get 2 toys next time he saw her. He told her like 5 times and he even used her pet name for it (my fault, I told him). Yes, he got her in the sweet spot. That day, a few of those old defiant behaviors popped up, but we were prepared, so they were quickly quelled.

So, Ramis and I chatted about our decision: WHO THE FUCK CARES?!? We don't care if she uses it until she's 35. The girl is going to need braces. Both of her parents have fucked up teeth! She wants the security of one tiny thing that she sucks on for a few minutes, then it falls out of her mouth! She's got the vocabulary and skill set of a kindergartner, so it's certainly not impeding her learning. Why does everyone seem to have an opinion about a miniscule, innocent, little thing that is important to HER. Why is it everyone's business? Just leave the girl be and let her do her thing.... she was born this way, so let's let nature take its course with it. OK, people?