Operation No Pacifier, Day 3

We're surviving. She's still yelling and thoroughly hacked off, but we're surviving. There were several reasons for taking her pacifier away this early. She only takes it when she sleeps but she won't sleep without it. That means car rides home late at night can be challenging if we don't have a pacifier with us (or if she's dropped it and it's dark and we can't find it) and it means that I have gotten up at 4 am one time too many to find the pacifier she has lost during the course of the night. The other reason is my concern about speech delays/impediments. Since the roof of their mouth is still soft and forming obviously keeping a pacifier too long can affect the shape of that as well as their teeth. Even more of a concern, if they learn to talk around the pacifier they can have speech issues later because they don't learn how to properly form the sounds. I know this all sounds a bit paranoid but I want to take it away while she still just needs it to sleep. I don't want to wait until she is 2 or 3 and possibly even more attached to it. This is going to hard no matter when we do it, might as well get over with now.

The first day we took it away her usual 2 hour morning nap consisted of yelling for 45 minutes and about 45 minutes of sleep. She didn't even take an afternoon nap. That night was the same thing. Yesterday, due to church and the birthday party she didn't get a nap all day and after running around all afternoon she was exhausted. I was hoping this would work in our favor, that she'd be too tired to put up a fight. I was wrong. My girl was opinionated and loud. Another 45 minutes of yelling. My friend told me to throw the pacifiers away when I decided to take them so I wouldn't get weak and cave. She was right, it has been SO HARD to hear her yell. She isn't crying, yes tears are involved, but this isn't about hurt feelings, it is a purely hacked off cry. The same friend told me her pediatrician said it would take about 3 days. Here's hoping tomorrow is easier.