I’m Dreading Taking Away Valentina’s Pacifiers

My heart hurts when I think about taking away Valentina’s pacifiers.

If you’ve ever thought about sleep training and immediately felt that instinctive "I don’t want my baby to be sad," you’ll understand where I am right now.

The thing is, intellectually, I know it’s time.

She’s been whining for them in the car, sneaking them out of the crib, and seeking them out every time she’s tired or upset.

Her need for them is growing, not shrinking, despite the fact that she’ll be 3 in a few months.

If she were a client’s child, I’d gently point this out and say, “This is a sign that this habit is no longer serving her. It’s actually creating more anxiety in the long run.”

But she’s not my client. She’s my baby.

And even though I know exactly how to guide families through transitions like this, I still feel really emotional about doing it myself.

Because it's not really about intellectual knowledge, right?

It's about my willingness to feel sad alongside my little one, when I know I could easily rescue her by letting her keep her pacifiers. 

Just like you may be resisting sleep training because you know it'll be really hard, whereas rocking, feeding, or cosleeping would solve the problem immediately.

I feel sad about it because her pacifiers genuinely comfort her. They help her regulate. They make her feel better when she’s overwhelmed or tired. just like rocking, feeding to sleep, or cosleeping can.

Just thinking about taking that away hurts.

"Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." 

This is one of those times when the loving thing and the hard thing are the same thing.

I keep reminding myself of something I tell families every day: kids don’t need everything to stay the same to feel safe. They need steady leadership. They don’t learn resilience because nothing is ever hard. They learn it because someone they trust guides them through something new.

So yes, I’m emotional about this, and yes, I’m still going to move forward. Because loving our kids doesn’t always mean keeping things easy. Sometimes it means showing them the way forward.

If you’ve been wondering whether it might be time for a difficult but necessary change in your own home, you don’t have to figure it out alone. I’m here to help you think it through in a supportive, no-pressure consult call, free of charge.

Two years exactly since this photo was taken, the pacifiers are going away. Sniff.