The Great Binkie Debate

There I was, seated with the other guests, listening to the familiar sounds of Pachabel’s Canon in D playing while a procession of beautiful young ladies walked down the aisle carrying lavender rose bouquets.  Next, the familiar “da-da-da-da-da-dum…” The guests stood.  Some teared up.  Everyone smiled.  The bride, escorted by her tuxedo-clad father, walked gracefully down the aisle, and under her veil, not a radiant smile, but….a binkie.

Yes, I made that story up.  When was the last time you attended an event and saw an adult using a binkie (pacifier)?  Right…never.  That’s because children do give them up…eventually.

So why the great binkie debate?

My oldest, now eight, had a binkie until he was four.  Yes. Four years old.

Not that I didn’t think about taking it away earlier. As a first time mom, I made the decision somewhere around  age two-and-a-half that it was time for him to give up the binkie and that “cold turkey” was the best method.

After a night without sleeping (for any of us), my husband asked me “Why are we taking the binkie away?”

I gave him a list of reasons, from the future orthodontia bills we were incurring to the dozens of unknown bacteria that were probably living on the binkie (Okay, I made that last reason up.  I had no scientific data to back up my theory, but it sounded reasonable).

But those were not the real reasons.  I didn’t even realize the true reason until one afternoon when I was watching a friend’s children.  As she dropped them off, she left their blankets and stuffed “bear-bears” with them, saying, “They’ll need these to fall asleep or if they feel sad or tired or if you watch a video.”

That got me thinking.  If special blankets and bear-bears are acceptable forms of comfort for kids, why is the binkie such a no-no?  I mean, outside of dental objections and verbal development, why is the binkie such an evil thing? For some reason, people form an opinion about kids with binkies that they don’t form about children with special blankets or stuffed animals.  But the bottom line is that these items are all forms of attachments and comfort.  Kevin didn’t have an attachment to any stuffed animals, bed sheeting or pillows, but he did love his binkie.  It’s what calmed him down when he was upset and soothed him to sleep.

After pondering the question about blankets versus binkies, I realized that my pride was the driving force behind my desire to give up the binkie.  You see, Kevin has always been very tall for his age.  So at two-and-a-half, he looked like a four-and-a-half-year-old walking around with a binkie, which just seemed wrong.  And I felt like when people saw him with his binkie, they disapproved.  Not of his binkie, but of me as a parent. So the root reason I wanted him to give up his binkie was what I thought people thought of me as a mother.  You see, his binkie didn’t bother me at all.  I didn’t care if he needed it or wanted it…I only cared when other people made comments or gave one of “those” looks.

Realizing  that it was my pride that was fueling Kevin’s loss of his most beloved binkie, I relented on the whole push to make him give it up.  I did put some limitations on it–I restricted his binkie to his room and the car. A few months later, I limited it to his bedroom only, which was the next logical step in “Donna’s 12 Step Binkie Addiction Method” (a much easier method than cold-turkey).

Approaching his fourth birthday, our dentist gently, yet firmly, told me, “Donna, it’s time.  He needs to give up the binkie.”  Thankfully, Kevin’s mouth hadn’t sustained any real damage from his binkie sucking, but our dentist was right.  It was time.

By now, Kevin was old enough to talk to about giving up the binkie.  We made a reward chart: 14 nights of no binkie and he’d earn a trip to the haven of Child-dom; Toys R Us.  The first night he cried himself to sleep, the second night he cried for about ten minutes before falling asleep and the third night he took forever to fall asleep.  Not because he was crying, but because he was making a list of the things he “might buy” at Toys R Us when he earned his reward.

Now, I’m not saying that you should let your child have a binkie until he’s four.  My point is that there is a time that is right for your child and for you and you alone determine when that is.  Jason, our 22-month-old, uses a binkie and I’ve already decided that on his second birthday we’re restricting it to his room.  I’ve noticed a vast difference in the amount of talking he does when he doesn’t have his binkie in his mouth. He’s noticeably more verbal without it, so for him, it’s beneficial to give it up on the sooner rather than later side. (Check back in two months and I’ll let you know how it’s going!)  So, there are benefits of teaching a child to give up the binkie at an earlier age.  But if you don’t, don’t stress.  It’s okay.  Your child will give it up eventually.  After all, when was the last time you went to a graduation ceremony and saw some of the graduates with binkies in their mouths?

-posted by Donna Venning, the mother of two binkie addicts and one thumb sucker and says to all the parents of binkie-users “Count your blessings…you can take a binkie away.  You can’t chop off a thumb.”