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No advice, but I want to follow this.

DS is 19 months old and still gets his paci for naptime & bedtime.

We haven't weaned, but LO seems to be self-weaning. At 7.5 months, she usually just likes to teethe on them (we have the Soothies), and rarely sucks on one anymore. We didn't do anything to discourage her use of them.

I'm doing this with my 5 month old right now... she uses the paci to sleep and screams constantly when she spits it out. Last night was her first night without it, we did it cold turkey. It wasn't so bad, but I had to sit with her for about 30 mins while she fell asleep both when I put her to bed and in the middle of the night 2x when she woke (I'm following sleep sense program).

We did it cold turkey at 19 months when we noticed that DS wasn't sucking on it most of the time so much as letting it just hang out in his mouth. I just picked them all up one day while he wasn't looking and threw them out. I didn't talk to him about it or make a big deal, just took them away. He didn't really notice they were gone until he went down to sleep and then he just substituted his lovey so it was all in all, very painless.

"The Happiest Baby on the Block" was really helpful for us. The author recommends weaning the paci around 4-5 months before they start to view it as more of a lovey. We're at 3 months now, and I'm planning to attempt to wean in the next month or two.

At 13 months we cut the tip off the binks. He had a couple of tough nights falling asleep but then it was pretty smooth sailing.

@umlo: it is amazing to me that your DD at that age could understand your explanation! My DS is 19 month old and I think he would just give me a blank stare if I did that.

We are reaching the point where we need to take the binky away. DS uses them for sleeping only, but he will find one lying around and pop it in and refuse to take it out. I am going to work on solidifying his lovey first and then maybe just go cold turkey and hide all of them. It's great to read all the different experiences here. For DD we got rid of the binky at 5 mo when we did CIO.

I need to remember this thread in a few months when we attempt to wean!

We just did this!

My daughter turned 2.5 yrs old at the end of April. We decided a few months prior that we'd wean from the paci at 2.5, and then I saw that Day Out with Thomas (the train) was going to be in our state right around that time. I started telling LO that we were going to see Thomas, but that only big girls get to see him and we were going to have to put away the paci. I talked it up (while allowing the paci) for probably 3 weeks... and then I'd say "Yey, it's almost time to go see Thomas!" and unprompted she'd respond with something to the effect of "and no more paci!"

I was worried she wouldn't really understand what that meant, so I wanted to do something tangible to say "bye bye" to the paci. Since we intend on having another baby, I didn't want to say that pacis were for babies and give the paci to a baby we know (I've heard of this, and awesome if it works for you, but i was afraid she'd be bitter towards babies).

We picked up a flower pot and some dirt and told LO that if she planted her paci, a flower would grow. She was thrilled (literally, and I was SHOCKED she bought it) and dropped her paci into the pot. I gave her a hug and told her I was so proud (in the mean time, my husband scooped out the paci and dumped in dirt - i wanted to paci for her baby box). She then helped my husband pat down the dirt, water it, and put it on the window ledge.

At bed time, she did ask for the paci. We carefully explained that 'remember, we planted it and we are waiting for a flower to grow!' and she went to go look at the pot. She knew it was in there. She seemed ok with this. She did have a hard time soothing herself to sleep that night, but she didn't cry.

After she fell asleep, we planted a begonia plant in the pot (figured that immediate gratification would be best). The next morning, she immediately remembered that the paci was going to turn into a flower and asked to go see it.

Again, she was thrilled.

The next few nights she did ask for the paci, but almost in a joking way. We'd tell her it turned into a flower and there's no more paci, but good thing bc we are going to see Thomas! She would be satisfied with that answer and didn't cry once the whole week directly after taking it away.

We are now 2.5 weeks post-paci and she hasn't asked for it at all... we have had to find a new bedtime routine, since the paci was the ultimate soother, but we have been listening to her cues. Sometimes she asks to rock, and I will rock her in her room to help her settle down.

My main goal was to wait until she was ready to give it up. I didn't want her to feel like we'd taken from her, so I think that by having her be an active participant in making it go away was the biggest factor in our success.

@mrsmate Good luck! I was so happy this worked for us & hope it's helpful for others!

@Mrs Checkers: we weaned LO at 10 months and did it gradually but I really love the suggestion by @ktdid23: