1. Slow and Steady
One of the most common methods for removing a pacifier from your child’s life is slowly start phasing it out. This is very easy if your child goes to day care. First you let her have the pacifier at home and in the evenings and at naptime at daycare. Then you eliminate morning pacifier time when she is awake. After a week of this you eliminate the evening pacifier time when your child is awake. After a week of this your child should only be using the pacifier when she is sleeping. Now here comes the tough part. Try to eliminate the nap time pacifier. Try this for a couple weeks until she is used to falling asleep without the pacifier at nap time. Once she is accustomed to this (it may take up to two weeks depending on your child’s temperament) then start to remove the pacifier during her bedtime routine. Try distraction or an extra story: explain that if she can go to bed without the pacifier she will get an extra story. Make sure at this point your child does not see any pacifiers. Put them all away. For most children under 4 out of sight equals out of mind. With this method your child should be pacifier free in about month or two.

2. Rewards and Recognition
Get a calendar and a lot of stickers. Let your little one pick them out. He will enjoy the feeling that he has some control in what is happening. Set up your calendar into 4 sections per day. One for the morning time, nap time, evening time and night time. For every section of the day he goes without his pacifier he gets to put a sticker on his calendar. Set up a reward system, for so many stickers per week he gets a special honor or, my favorite, he gets to spend an entire dollar at your local Dollar tree or other type of dollar store. Many children love spending money they earned. Each week increase the number of stickers required to earn the reward. Pretty soon getting the next sticker will be more important to him than sucking on that pacifier.

3. Cold Turkey
Just like it sounds, you simply decide one day that it’s time for the pacifier to go. Gather up all the pacifiers you can find, make sure you check in the toy box and under the bed. Throw them in the trash and then take the trash to the dumpster. If you don’t have a dumpster then take the pacifiers to a store trash can. This way you can not go get them later. Consistency is what makes this method work. Some children respond to this method the best. It is hard the first day or so but ultimately they will forget about the pacifiers and find an alternate way to self sooth. If you do happen to find another pacifier after your purge, include your child in the disposal. Tell her what a big girl she is for throwing the pacifier away and give her lots of love and reassurance.

4. Growing Up
Once again you need to gather up all the pacifiers you can find. This time you have your child leave them on his window sill or his nightstand.
Then tell him this story:

A long long time ago there were no pacifiers (substitute with your family’s name for them). One day the king and queen had a baby who would never stop crying. They searched high and low to find someone who could help them make their baby happy. One day a peddler came and gave them the first pacifier. They gave it to the baby and she stopped crying and was happy. The peddler told them they could use the pacifier until the baby was a big kid, but then they would need to pass it on to another baby who needed it. Time went on and the baby grew up into a big kid who could (enter anything your child is very proud of being able to go i.e. put on shirt by herself or count to 10) and the King and Queen knew it was time to give the pacifier up to a new baby who needed it. But how would they know which baby needed the pacifier the most? They called for the peddler, who came right away. The peddler told them that if they placed the pacifier on their big kids (choose location i.e. windowsill) then at night the Pacifier fairy would come to take it to a new baby who needed it. And in return for the pacifier the fairy would leave the big kid a brand new big kid toy (my son got a new fire truck). This way no babies would ever have to be unhappy and cry.

Then tell your child you are leaving the pacifiers out for the pacifier fairy to come take to a new baby who needs them. Emphasize to your child that he is a big boy and no longer needs the pacifier and that he will get a new big boy toy in return from the pacifier fairy. This method works great and is the method I used with both my boys.