How to get a child to quit using a pacifier?
These are the suggestions posted on wikihow (http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Child-to-Quit-Using-a-Pacifier)
# Set up a rewards program. Give your child a star each day they go without, and after they have (x) number of stars consistently, they can get a treat, like a Popsicle, or even going to the movies.
# Simply take it away. This will upset the child for a few days, and they may dislike you for about a week. But after that, they won't remember. And you can have a huge sigh of relief because you don't have to deal with it anymore. This is most effective for younger children, who can't understand a reward system like a 3-5 year-old could.
# Use an older child as an example. Even a cartoon character, like Dora the Explorer would work. You just have to say, "You don't see your cousin Sam with a Binky, do you? That's because he's a big boy. And you want to be a big boy don't you?" often works. Using a model can help them begin understanding comparisons earlier then say, preschool.
# Inform the child that there are other children that need Binky's that are just being born. Send him out to hang them on a tree,or to hide them throughout the house, so that the Binky fairy can pick them up. Keep a close watch to see where he hid them, and then get them that night. Leave a small gift, something cheap and plastic but that the child will like, in each child's place.
It is too young for Wen Jia to understand rewards program so the first suggestion won't work. We used a combination of suggestion 2 and a bit of tricks to help her to quit pacifier. First, we took it away while on our vacation to Singapore. We stayed in a friend's house so we created a trick (as suggested by our friend in Singapore) that "uncle" had threw the pacifier away. In exchanged, my friend bought her a toy cake which she likes so much to make her believe that "uncle" had exhanged the pacifier with a toy that she likes.
Though she cried a few nights asking for the pacifier, but we managed to calm her down by telling her the "uncle" story again and again.
But, the story didn't end here, when she was back in KL, she requested for pacifier again. Probably she thought that the "restriction" was only for as long as she was in Singapore. Siew Wei has had some tough time at night calming her down and rocking her to sleep. We started to believe that pacifier did miraculously caused addiction to my girl that she felt unsecure and uneasy without it. Until today, she still asks for pacifier although less frequent now.
Well, for Wen Jia, it takes a lot of persistency and patience for us to stop her from using pacifier. We nearly gave up but we knew that the golden rule is "never give up or else it will take double the effort now to make her quit". I think we are 70% there as she is getting more and more comfortable without pacifier.
