Is there a psychologist / psychiatrist in the house? I need advice! I apologize that this is a long post.

LO is 20 months going on 21. He has a blankie that he attaches to. However, he sucks on it in order to go to sleep. He uses it at night sleep and weekend nap only.

Worried about his teeth alignment, we started taking the blankie away last week. It was DH's idea. Long story short, I caved.

After the first two nights without the blankie, he started crying like crazy during bedtime when we left without giving him a blankie. He would still fall asleep, but he cries. So at one point, I gave it back to him saying blankie doesn't like him to bite or it will go away. That actually got worse because I gave him blankie, he bite, and the next day I said blankie wasn't happy so he is not returning. He cried much worse than before so I had to give him one. So the cutting blankie mission is on hold.

I also tried cutting blankie during his nap time. It was worse than bedtime. He won't go down to sleep for an hour. He would cry when he's about to go to sleep. I caved again and gave him one and he fell asleep within seconds. The thing I don't understand is, he didn't need a blankie when he naps at school at all..!

So DH and I fight about this because he kept saying it is going to affect his teeth (pediatrician confirmed) and he didn't want to pay for braces. He also accuse me for being too soft, and I am spoiling LO because I gave him everything he wants. For me, I worry about long-term psychological effects that we remove the blankie in such a tragic way. For some reason I was OK with CIO sleep train when he was an infant, but I am not ok with cutting his blankie. Maybe if we didn't CIO back then I would have gone crazy myself first. I don't know.

I was thinking about the Freudian's oral development stage and wanted to find out what would be the psychological effect if the oral stage wasn't satisfied. It worries me when I read this:

"This stage occurs from birth to around one year. As the name suggests, in this stage, a child tries to gratify his libidinal energy through his mouth by sucking, biting, chewing, etc. You would observe children putting everything in their mouth at this age, be it objects, toys, or chocolates. Oral fixation has two possible outcomes. If the person is dissatisfied at this stage, he is characterized by pessimism, suspicion, and sarcasm and grows into an adult who reduces tension or anxiety through eating, drinking, and smoking etc. Such personality is known as oral receptive personality. On the other hand overindulged person is known as oral aggressive personality which is characterized by optimism, gullibility, and hostility etc."

So if he is still sucking on his blankie at 20 months, is he considered to be overindulged? Is he going to develop an oral aggressive personality characterized by optimism, gullibility and hostility? And if I cut it now, would that mean he will become pessimistic, suspicious and sarcastic and become a smoker? Now thinking about it, my mom said she cut me from thumb sucking at this age. And I did become a pessimistic and suspicious person.

Regardless, I think I will cut it by age 2. I also read that if you cut a pacifier by age 2 it will not affect his teeth alignment because there will be a 6-month adjustment that will take place. I hope it will be easier to cut by then...

Any psychologists/doctors/dentists/expert moms in the house??? Any thoughts??