Giving the pacifier to Santa Claus: good or bad idea?

Your child does not pick up his pacifier and Christmas is approaching, pretending a gift to Santa Claus runs through your head but is it a good or a bad idea?

It’s almost time to make your list to Santa Claus, prepare the tree and watch Christmas movies with the family comfortably in a plaid. Many legends revolve around this period and if the idea of give your pacifier to Santa Claus has long been in vogue among parents, for children it turns out that this technique is not really popular. The Christmas period is ideal to make children dream, or to do a little blackmail, but from there to giving his pacifier, it is not the most obvious.

So good or bad idea? Feedback is not really positive on this technique which can prove to be more traumatic than innocuous for some children. Manon is 20 years old and she told us how she stopped using the pacifier.

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Is the Christmas period conducive to weaning from the pacifier?

The pacifier reassures the children a lot, it’s a bit like a second comforter, for the siesta, the sorrows, the fatigue, the nights… he never leaves her. Psychologists advise, in general, to stop it during a period when there are not too many upheavals for the child and for you. But Christmas is above all many family celebrations that do not end, people at home, a lot of excitement and a disrupted program. In this context, your little one is therefore not really ready to give up what reassures him: his pacifier, on the contrary he will greatly need it.

And for good reason, Manon for example had to give away her pacifier and she didn’t take it well at all: “When I was little I always had my pacifier and my cuddly toy with me until I was 4/5 years old. One day, I had to give them to Santa Claus. At first, I was very happy to be able to give it to her, I felt like I was doing a good deed. In reality, the days after were very difficult! My cuddly toy helped me compensate for the lack of pacifiers and still today he is by my side, he lived! 15 years later, I still haven’t forgotten this story, I felt so much pain.

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At what age?

There is not necessarily a good time to stop the pacifier, but one thing is certain, it must be done gradually. Below 2 years, it is complicated to ask a child to give up his pacifier, he still needs it to reassure him. After this age, you can begin to reduce your presence during the day, but gradually. Giving Santa his pacifier is actually rather brutal for a child, it’s an overnight stop and he shouldn’t start hating Santa Claus! Take your time, offer to put it in a corner, or in a box and wait to see his reaction before moving on to the next step.

Loïse proposed to her child an alternative, anticipating the situation she proposed a week before the start of the school year to send a package to Santa Claus. In this package, they put together his 12 pacifiers, after having sent them to the “North Pole”. In the evening, on returning home, the little boy discovered a gift from Santa Claus to thank him. Loïse explained to him that Santa Claus rewards children who act like grown-ups and everything went perfectly.

Parenting writer

Zoé is on a work-study program, she joined the aufeminin team in September 2022, she writes for the parenting section. Committed and curious, Zoé likes to write to advance…

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