pacifier cold turkey woes

We took our 2 1/4yr old daughter's pacifier away a week ago (using the
binky fairy - exchanging dummy for presents ploy), and she now fights
going to bed or having daytime naps and even worse - wakes up twice a
night crying. From previously sleeping 14 hours a day (includes a
daytime nap), she now wakes up at 5am ready to start the day (no matter
whether she went to bed early or late or had a nap in the daytime).
When she cries in the night we can usually get her to go to sleep by
saying we will be in the room or we will pop back in in a minute. When
she goes to to bed in the evening she insists one of us stay in the
room - so we usually stay until she goes off. My concerns are the
- are we swapping one bad habit (needing a dummy to fall asleep) with
another (needing a parent in the room to fall asleep)

Ericka Kammerer...

Yes.

- how can we get her to enjoy going to bed now (she previously loved it
when she had her dummy)

Ericka Kammerer...

You'll need to find something else to work into the
routine. Build up some other kind of comfort object or strategy--
special story, stuffed animal, blanky, good-night ritual, whatever
you think will work with her.

- how long will it be nefore she finds it easy to live without her
dummy in bed and so stop the night wakings? (she has only ever had it
for naps and bed)

Ericka Kammerer...

It might be a while yet, depending on how much she
relied on it. You might give some consideration to picking
a comfort object/strategy that she can use herself in the
middle of the night, rather than something like a story that
requires you to work.

I am a bit loathe to cave in and give back the dummy now it's been a
week. She still says she's upset she cant have it, but understands that
the `fairy' has it and so wont demand us to give it to her. She has a

Ericka Kammerer...

I wouldn't go back. In hindsight, what seems to
work better in these situations is to get a new comfort
strategy well established before you pull the plug on an
old one. That makes the transition easier.

cuddly toy as a comforter that she takes to bed with her. Thanks for

Ericka Kammerer...

You may be able to play that up so that it can
take the place of the pacifier, or you might need to
introduce something new.

any advice in advance!

toypup...

LOL. We took DS's pacifier away when he was 2 1/2 yo and he was fine, but
he couldn't sleep. After a week, DH demanded I go buy a whole new set of
pacifiers. It took about a month to get the sleep back in order. At 3yo,
DH had a talk with DS and DS agreed he was getting too old for a pacifier.
He gave it up then without a problem and his sleep was no longer affected.

Jonathan Levy...

That worked with me. As my third birthday approached, my parents
struck some sort of deal with me that I would give it up when I turned
three. I do not know if I got anything or if I just accepted that
three was too old to use a pacifier. On my birthday, I walked over to
the trash and dropped the pacifier in. My parents secretly retrieved
it, concerned that I was not going to be able to go cold turkey, but I
apparently never asked for it again.

I do not know if that helps. My experiences as a parent certainly do
not. For whatever unexplainable reasons kids do or don't do things, it
has not been an issue for us. Our first child just kind of lost
interest around his first birthday, even though he used it a lot as a
baby, and the second has never gotten interested in it.