The Pacifier War

It's painful but it's necessary.

It's day 3 since we stopped giving Sarah her pacifier. It's not been easy for her due to her addiction. After observing her in recent weeks, we felt that she was ready to be weaned off. The one big positive sign we saw was, she being able to fall asleep at night without the aid of her pacifier. However, it was still needed whenever she woke up in the middle of the night.

Last sunday, we made the decision to try to wean her off it again. Our first attempt a few months back was aborted after 3 days, as she had problem getting asleep. Since she can now fall asleep without her pacifier, we are feeling more confident.

Day 1. She was alright most of the day, but by evening, she was getting cranky and could not stop crying. She managed to calm down after we distracted her with tv and brought her to the hypermart to touch all the merchandise on display.

Day 2. First day in school without pacifier. We informed the school that we had stopped giving Sarah the pacifier. As we left her in school and went off to work, we could not help but worry about her coping in school. Mama was worried that Sarah would cry all day and not sleep, she might even snatch the pacifier off other kids! When we returned to the school in the evening, we were pleasantly surprised when informed that Sarah was well behaved the whole time, she even napped twice. She did ask for her pacifier by pointing towards where her pacifier was normally kept, but when she was told that Papa has taken away the pacifier, she was quite alright with it. Mama was relieved and very proud of Sarah, she could not stop praising Sarah on the way back home and continued praising her into the night.

Day 3. She showed signs of missing pacifier, but she was not very persistent in asking for it. She was well behaved in school, but was crying after she woke up from her afternoon nap. We were there to fetch her home when she woke up, took a while for us to calm her down. She did not eat much for dinner but played happily when we brought her to the park. After drinking her milk, she fell asleep at nine.

We think the war is almost over!