The Pacifier

GAWD. I'm already tired of me. I guess I thought I was more interesting or something.............

Pacifiers
When my son was born, I had it all planned. We'd use a pacifier for the 1st few months, then he could suck his thumb if he wanted. After all, this strategy had worked swell for my sister - why not me? What I didn't count on was the fact that my son would rather not suck on a hunk of plastic. He'd rather suck on me. And I didn't mind. We were co-sleeping anyway and whatever garnered us the most amount of sleep was the Official Plan going forward. The end.

Yeah, RIGHT. Okay, it wasn't actually THAT easy. He took a pacifier for the first few days, then I got paranoid about Nipple Confusion and took them away to wait for the recommended 3 weeks. THEN, he wouldn't take pacifier any longer and THEN, I went through a lot of pacifiers trying to find the One that would win over my son's heart. It was very hard to put him down for naps because he didn't have any mechanisms for self-comfort. Sure, he'd co-sleep at NIGHT, but naptime he wouldn't sleep with me, despite my best efforts. So, the first 10 months were HARD - nighttime sleep was a breeze, but naps were killing me. KILLING.... ME....... And not softly, either. I may have spent most nights sleeping peacefully, but the afternoons found me sobbing on my couch, stuffing my face with Choxie chocolates and lamenting my woes to my sister.

However.

The advantage is that my son DID eventually find ways to self-soothe. And we've never had to deal with weaning him for a pacifier or a thumb. Which leads me to think that I probably won't even try the pacifier with my daughter. Why bother if I can just suck it up?

Of course, I say that NOW.