No more Paci

Well, Da-Da and I had agreed that we wanted to wean Jillian off of her pacifier by the time she was 18 months old. That date is quickly approaching so we thought we should get started on this task, especially not knowing how long this might take.

Friday night (the 22nd) we used the progressive waiting approach found in the book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber. Now, we didn't think our daughter had a sleep problem but what we read was that we could be setting her up for problems by responding with a bottle or pacifier immediately every time she cried, instead of trying to let her self soothe. The progressive approach was designed to let her know we were there if she needed us but not give her a bottle, or in our case a pacifier, to soothe her back to sleep. The first night was a little rough and she cried off and on for about 30 minutes but to our surprise it worked and we had to use the same technique once during the night.

After that first night, we were pretty pleased with ourselves and with Jillian. The second night was maybe 15 minutes of crying but she did go to sleep. We ended up abandoning the progressive approach because it would make her madder if we came back in to check on her and then didn't take her out of the crib or give her something. Needless to say she is pacifier free after that weekend and hasn't missed it since. I think Da-da and I were more dependent on the thing than she was.

We achieved our goal of no paci by 18 months well before she turned 18 months. I think we are getting the hang of this parenting thing!!!