The pacifier is meant to offer comfort to your baby. Most often, infants spend a lot of time sucking or biting on the pacifier. A pacifier is handy when you want to put your baby to sleep or stop your baby from crying further. But did you know that the pacifier has an adverse impact on your child’s teeth and health? Recent studies believe babies using pacifiers face three times the risk of developing ear infections.

Recommended Read:  Tips to Cope if Your Baby has Colic

The problem is that if your child becomes familiar and friendly with his/her pacifier, then getting rid of the pacifier habit becomes a challenge. So, read on to get a few tips on how to have your infant wean off the pacifier:

Cut the tip

Babies often chew on the nipple of the pacifier. To wean your child off a pacifier, you could cut the tip of the pacifier off. Without the tip, your child will not enjoy sucking on it and will not use it anymore.

Create a pacifier fairy for it

Another way to get rid of your child’s dependency on a pacifier is by telling your child that now that he/she is healthy and big, a pacifier fairy will come for the binky. Your child may give in to the story and let the pacifier be taken away.

Recommended Read: Everything You Need to Know About Speech Delays

Dip it in lemon juice

Another way to wean your child off the habit of using a pacifier is by dipping the binky’s nipple in lemon juice. After this, as soon as your child sucks on the pacifier, he/she will find it tastes sour and may not like it. Therefore, your child will distance himself/herself from the pacifier.

Hide it

Hide the pacifier when your child is not noticing. When your child wants it and asks for it or starts looking for it, act as if you don’t know where it is. Your child may get tired of looking for it after some time and eventually forget about it.

Use other toys

Distract your toddler by engaging him/her in other games , building blocks, and toys. Your baby will not miss the binky while playing.

So, use these tips and your child will say bye bye to the binky without crying or throwing tantrums .

Keep yourself updated with the latest on Parenting . Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more on Health and Family Planning & Pregnancy . Also, check out our Health Tools and try out our health-related Quizzes .