I've been told three different methods for weening your child off their pacifier. The first method is to cut the tip off little by little each day or each week (whichever you are most comfortable with). The second method is to use the next size down (going from 6-18 month pacifiers to 0-6 month pacifiers). The third method is just getting rid of the entire pacifier cold turkey. For some this method has worked perfectly for them, and for others, it seems pretty harsh to do to their child. As for myself, this method seems a bit harsh. I prefer the other two methods to be completely honest.
My husband and I did the second method for our eldest daughter and that took about a week before she fell asleep the minute we put her in her crib.
Now we are trying the second method with our youngest. I was a little afraid of how she would react since the pacifier became her "security blanket" so to speak, ever since I stopped breastfeeding her when she was 11 months. We made our first cut about 3 weeks ago and cut the tip once a week after that. By the third week, she was running around the house without her pacifier and talking more while we were in the car.
Saturday night was the first night we had put her to sleep without her "security blanket." She pretty much crashed, but had woken up around 2:30 in the morning crying. I ignored her and she seemed to have fallen asleep again. For her Sunday nap time, she cried for about five minutes then started talking to herself! It was the funniest thing to listen to over the baby monitor, but eventually she fell asleep. Tonight (Sunday) it seems that it is taking her a little bit longer to fall asleep without her pacifier. She cried for five minutes ago like she did during her nap time, started talking to herself once again, and made a few noises just so she could stay up a little bit longer. There is one things I am glad about... she is not screaming her head off for more than ten minutes! :-P
I am hoping she will sleep the whole night through tonight, but if not, that is okay too. It is a process that we all must go through that takes some time for our littlest to get used to. I just need to remind myself not to get too frustrated about her not falling asleep immediately. After all, my youngest is very different from how my eldest was when she was 14 months old. :-)
Food for thought: Which method(s) have you done to ween your little one(s) off the pacifier?
