Pacified

When Evan and Jordan were a couple of months old, we decided to carry out an experiment with them. Both would cry when they were placed in their car seats and driven from West (where we lived) to East (where my mom and their Godmama lived). We needed something that would pacify them. And we'd heard bad things about using both their thumbs and the dummies as pacifiers.

So we decided that since we had twins, we would try one of each. We encourgaed Evan to suck his thumb as a means of self-soothing and we gave Jordan the pacifier for the same reason. Actually, they pretty much picked it for themselves because Evan didn't like the pacifier much.

Anyway, sucked they went. Sucking their way through stress, the first days of school, illness, being disciplined, falling over and bumping various parts of themselves, the thumb and the pacifier never failed to do their jobs.

We came to the conclusion that both weren't ideal.
























Evan sucks his thumb so hard that he now has a permanent callus on the knuckle of his thumb.

I also suspect that he caught HFMD from school because he sucks his thumb.

Thankfully his teeth don't jut out. They have gotten away with being slightly crooked. I am assured by the pediatric dentist that we visited that there is no permanent damage.


Jordan has sucked her way through at least 10 pacifiers.

The pacifier was most helpful the first time she travelled and experienced cabin pressure.

As a result of all the hours (which by any count isn't a great amount; she only used to to go to sleep and comfort herself in times of distress), her teeth are slightly wider spaced.

She's also got a cute lisp that has resulted from it. But even so, that's disappearing as her speech becomes clearer.

The same dentist told us that as long as she got rid of her pacifier before her adult teeth set in, we were fine.


















I have had more issue with the pacifier than the thumb sucking. This was primarily because on frequent occasions, Jordan would decide it was necessary to sleep with the silicone dummy in her mouth while Evan's thumb would fall right out once his mouth went slack.

So the deal with Jordan was she could have the pacifier till her 3rd birthday (setting milestones help) and after that she was to throw it away.

The day after her birthday, she valiantly tries to fall asleep after handing me her pacifier. She tosses and turns and cannot get herself to sleep. 30 seconds worth of sucking on the pacifier sent her into a deep sleep that had proved elusive for the previous hour.

It was at that moment that I wasn't going to do it with her cold turkey. It was too cruel.

In all honesty, I wished I could have done it then because the ensuing days saw her depend on it as a poor man smoking opium for his tuberculosis.

But strangely enough, in the last week or so, she has successfully weaned herself off it. She would ask for it for a minute and gamely return it before settling herself to bed.

I haven't done much except tell her that she is a big girl and a pacifier is not needed. So far, it looks like it's working and she actually seems ready to wean herself off it.

Hopefully, I'm rid of it and can finally toss them all out.


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