When you have little kids you find that a pacifier gives not only you, but your child a small amount of relief. That’s right, a small little piece of plastic keeps everyone happy. Just as quickly as the paci becomes your best friend, it become your worst enemy to ween your kids off.

With our fist son we got lucky. He really like the paci up until about the time he was 16 months old, then one day we put the paci in his mouth and he spit it back out. I don’t just mean using his tongue to push it out, I mean a full force shot fired across the room. Since my wife and I thought maybe it was just a fluke, we attempted to give it to him over the course of the next few days. Each time we put it into his mouth, he would fire it back out. After hitting me right between the eyes we decided to throw the paci away.

Our second son was almost as easy. He took a little longer to decide he didn’t need it, but he was more dramatic in his approach. We had just decided we need to start weening him off the paci, so we started by asking him to give it to us. He would shake his head and go hide. We were heading out one day in the car and had the windows down to let the fresh air in. From over my shoulder I saw something go flying by, and realize my son had thrown his paci out the window. He laughed, said “bye bye paci”, and never asked for it again.

In comes our third son. He was almost as easy as our first son. He decided he was done an would spit it out. Just as we were getting ready to throw the paci away, he got really sick. Since he wasn’t feeling very well we decided to let him have his paci for just a little longer. A few days however turned into another year long battle. He stopped calling it his paci and started referring to it as flobbie. While we were on vacation the next summer we hid the paci for the drive back. When our son asked where his flobbie went, we told him he must have dropped into the ocean and a shark took it. “Did he give it to his little baby shark?” he asked. “I think it must have” was our response. The next year when we were driving down to the beach my son out of the blue said “I am gonna find that shark and get flobbie back”

We are currently getting to the point with our daughter were we will ween her off the paci. With her the problem is a little different from her brothers. She knows we will take the paci away so she finds one of the spare ones and hides it. She will wander off and a few minutes later show up with a paci in her mouth. I have a feeling the sharks may have to make a return appearance and help us out one last time.