Bye Bye, Baba: Our Pacifier Weaning Journey
my real-time notes, things that went surprisingly well, and things that didn't
My daughter is about to turn two, and for most of her life, sleep has involved some combination of “mama’s milkies” and her pacifier, which she calls her “baba”. She only uses it for naps and nighttime, but it has become a very important ritual in helping her fall asleep. Usually, she nurses > asks for her baba > and then rolls over… and then it repeats throughout the night.
This has made getting rid of the pacifier feel a little more complicated than the usual advice I found online. Most people seemed to be dealing with either a toddler who nursed to sleep or a toddler who used a pacifier, but not both.
I actually tried to get rid of it sometime after we got back from Korea, (if my memory is correct it was around 14 mos?) We made it two days before I gave it back. Without the pacifier, she pretty much stayed latched the entire night and I got zero sleep. I was already managing high sleep-debt and night terrors, so I just couldn’t do it.
Looking back, maybe we should have stayed the course and eventually the extra nursing would have slowed down once she adjusted. But, I was trying to survive a tough season, and the pacifier was a conveniently helpful tool in getting us all back to sleep faster.
Now she is almost two, it has been on my mind to wean off of the pacifier. So, I woke up the other day, realizing we are about to move into my parents’ house for the next six-ish months. And I knew that once we moved in, I would be even more nervous to make a change that could involve hours of crying and waking everyone in the house.
So, with one week left before the move, we decided… let’s do it for real this time.
And absolutely no turning back.
Side Note: Friends, please excuse the messiness of this post. We are moving this week, and there is just soooo much going on! I do not have the time to mull through this a dozen times the way I typically do. I try my best to always share with care and intentionality, but right now, I am here to share off the cuff notes / diary-style from our weaning journey. xx
Night One: Testing the Waters
The night before we officially started, I put one tiny pinhole in all of her pacifiers.
She could tell something was different, but it wasn’t enough to cause a full meltdown. It just took her longer to fall asleep because she knew something was off and kept trying to make the baba work the way it normally did.
The night itself was rough. Our normal routine is milk, baba, sleep. Because the baba was not as satisfying, she kept coming back to me for more milk.
She woke up a lot and nursed throughout the night, but honestly, I’m very used to it. 😆
Day One
Nap One
This was the official start. I turned the tiny pinhole into a larger slit, so there was really no going back.
She had woken up around 5:00am after not sleeping well the night before, so I already knew we would probably be having a two-nap day.
Around 8:00, she asked for her baba, and I gave it to her. She immediately knew something was different.
I told her, “These babas are getting old. It looks like they are breaking. We are going to have to say bye-bye soon. Babas will be all done.”
She looked sad and asked me to hold her while she held her babas. I told her, “I know it’s sad. You really loved your babas. We can say, ‘Thank you, babas. I will miss you.’ Mama is here for you, and you can hold Abby,” her bunny.
I was mostly trying to plant the seed. I knew she was not fully tired yet, so it felt like a good time to talk about it before she was exhausted and more emotional.
I wanted her to have some kind of heads-up that her babas were breaking and that once they were broken, they would eventually be all done.
We went to the park to help her get really tired. When we got home, she was exhausted, and when she asked for her baba and realized it was not working the way it normally did, she became very upset.
It turned into a pretty huge meltdown with back arching, thrashing, and crying.
I knew we just had to move through it, so I stayed with her, tried to keep her safe, and let her be upset.
After about 20 minutes, she asked to go outside and have milk, so I nursed her on the patio until she fell asleep.
Nap Two
Nap two brought another huge meltdown with about the same level of intensity as the first.
I was not particularly rattled because this was definitely not my first rodeo with big physical meltdowns, but I did start thinking about what this change might mean for me.
We had finally reached a point where my mom or Andrew could sometimes put her to sleep during the day. Now it felt like I might be going back to being the only person who could eventually get her to sleep because, once the meltdown started winding down, she would cry out for milk.
Technically, I could leave and see how it goes with someone else, but her meltdowns are so full-on and physical that both Andrew and I worry about her getting hurt or someone else getting hurt while trying to hold her.
We also do not want to put my mom in a situation where she gets kicked in the face or chips a tooth trying to help.
For now, I am her safe place, so I am going to stay the course until we get to the other side of this.
By this point, I was starting to feel nervous about bedtime. I decided I would go to sleep as soon as she did. So that when she inevitably woke up asking for her baba, I would at least have an hour or two of sleep under my belt.
Bedtime
Bedtime actually went much better than I expected.
She nursed, tried the pacifier, went back to nursing, tried the pacifier again, and repeated that cycle probably five or six times.
She never cried. She just seemed mildly frustrated that the baba was not working and kept returning to milk.
Eventually, she fell asleep nursing.
I went to sleep immediately because I had no idea how hairy the night might get.
Overnight
The night went surprisingly well. There was no crying at all.
She woke up a few times to nurse, but she did not seem upset about not having a working pacifier. She just nursed and went back to sleep.
The only downside was that she woke up for the day at 5:30am. Considering she had gone to sleep around 9:00, it was definitely not enough sleep.
