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Our daughter gave it up on her own around 6 months when she found her thumb. After that she would literally purse her lips at the sight of a soother.

@hilsy85: pretty much overnight. She dropped the soother and was a thumb kid. No drama or anything. I think it started in the car, she spit it out and started on her thumb. Hasn't looked back since.

@hilsy85: our daughter quit her paci when she found it was more a toy than a soother. That happened around 5 months or so. Now she uses her thumb to soothe, though...I'm not sure what the lesser of the two evils is, though.

I am a firm believer that taking her soother away (thumb or paci or whatever she loves) right now would be bad, though. She loves her soother (paci when that was it and thumb now) so much!! It makes her happy, I'm letting her have it.

DS loved his paci. He was able to find it and put it back in his mouth by himself around 6-7 months old, sometimes he'd need help but not always. We bought pacis that glowed in the dark for night so it helped him see them. He used his paci pretty consistently at home and daycare but when he started "talking" we started telling him he had to take his paci out to talk or we couldn't understand him. He was pretty good about not using it as frequently during the day after that. We took pacis away completely (no weaning, just full removal) at 19 months when we noticed he wasn't really sucking it anymore during the day, just letting it sit in his mouth out of habit. There were a few rough nights but he started sucking on his turtle (his lovey's) feet instead and that was enough to help him soothe but not stay in his mouth. He just isn't a thumb sucker.

my 9 month old still uses a paci. we are hoping to wean her off it by the time she turns one.

@hilsy85: We introduced the paci around 5 weeks so I was no longer the paci. Mostly he just used it for sleep and in the car to start. Because he is in daycare, they would use it more during the day than we would and it slowly started to progress to him wanting one more often through out the day.

Mine takes one sparingly. We CIOed so that got him pretty much off the paci because we didn't do checks so we had no opportunity to replace the paci....now we keep one on hand when we are in public. He chews his hands but he is teething.

We've used one for a while and she did start to want me to wake up to put it back in for her. We did CIO around 5.5 months though and didn't go in, even if I knew she just wanted the pacifier back. She's now a week over 6 months and she can put it back in herself. Hers falls out when she falls asleep too but when she wakes up, now she can put it back in. I'm not sure yet when we're going to try to wean her off of it, I might ask the pediatrician next time.

@hilsy85: We sleep trained at that age because DD was relying on a paci, swaddle, and being walked around (yeah, we really messed up there) to fall asleep and we got fed up. We pretty much did an extinction CIO on her. No props (swaddle, paci), put her down in the crib, and let her cry. It only took three days and the most she ever cried was 30 min.

DS uses it to fall asleep, but if he is really tired, he can sleep without it. When he is sick, we let him have it for limited times during the day, and if he happens to find one lying around, he will get so happy and pop it in his mouth. It is kind of like his best friend. I don't have a huge problem with him using it, but I also don't really recommend it. I think it's better to get rid of it earlier and not depend on it, although it really has saved us in some stressful situations (airplane, etc). We definitely will be getting rid of it soon since it's not allowed in his toddler room where he'll be going in 2 months!

I basically forced a paci on my LO at around 8 weeks because he was such a fussy baby who had a strong need to suck. We started using it for naps only at that time and it helped him fall asleep on his own. We only used it at nighttime to see if he was waking out of hunger at around 10 weeks (but not at initial bedtime). My LO also adored having his paci in the daytime. His face would light up if he saw it so how could I not give it to him (even though I hated him having it all day)?

We did sleep training through the middle of the night waking at 4.5 months and he was still using it for naps. At 8-8.5 months I decided to stop bringing it out of his room so he wouldn't get it during the day. At 9 months we would occasionally forget to give it to him for naps and he slept the same. Now at 11 months he doesn't use it at all. A couple of weeks ago he found an old paci, put it in his mouth, then threw it on the ground. I got him to pick it back up and we went over to the garbage and he threw it in the trash!!

I'm super happy with how things progressed with my little paci addict. I was prepared to let him keep it until he started walking but we managed to wean him off it with no stress!