Pacifier

The dreaded pacifier!  Anna & Madeline both sucked their thumbs - well past the age of three when most kids magically stop on their own.  Both of them needed lots of persuasion, reminding, and nasty nail polish to help them stop.  It was not fun.  By the time Lilah was born I had gotten smart and forced a pacifier on her to stop the thumb sucking - the same for Celeste.  When Lilah was about 12 months old and I was getting ready to throw her pacifier out a dentist told me that there have been studies that show that getting rid of a pacifier too early can sometimes cause thumb/finger sucking.  So Lilah got to keep hers until about 20 months or so.   Now here we are in the same situation with Celeste.  We are doing pretty well limiting it to her crib.  She knows to take it out and leave it with her blankets when we get her out.  The problem is that she leaves it close enough to the edge of her crib that she can sneak back in and get it out.  She'll sit in her room and suck on it until someone catches her.  When she gets tired, bored, or sad she'll find something else to suck on - she has her fingers, toys and this toy lid in her mouth all the time.  I have a feeling that she is going to have her pacifier for a while and that it's not going to be fun when it comes time to take it away!

This is a toy lid for a pot - it has a little knob on the top that she sucks on.  Yes, she wanders around the playroom like that!