WCCO TV’s Frank Vascellaro guest blogs for Cribsheet on ideas for getting rid of the pacifier…

Bribes, threats, pleas, even a scheme involving our pediatrician.

We  tried about everything to get our son Joe to give up his pacifier, the nuk ; or as he called it,  the  “bah-bah”. Finally, when Joe was nearly four, and his teeth were actually starting to protrude like a baby chipmunk, we pulled the plug. 

It wasn’t pretty, for Joe or us. However, I am here today to save you the pain, emotional turmoil, and sleepless nights we endured at the Vascellaro home.

I’m a TV reporter and anchor at WCCO. My names is Frank Vascellaro. I  work with wife, Amelia Santaniello. We’re the first married couple in Minnesota to co-anchor a daily news program. More importantly, we are the parents of 5 year old twins and an 8 year old boy.

And as you gathered from our experience with Joe, we’re interested in offering up solutions to parenting problems. We do regular segments on all kinds of real life issues ranging from taking away the pacifier, to paying for college.

Thursday night at 10 on channel 4 we’ll air a story showing tips and strategies for taking away the nuk.The issue gets a little complicated. The American Academy of Pediatrics says you should give your newborn a pacifier to lower the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. However, the academy of pediatrics doesn’t say how, or when, to take it away.

So, we spoke with a pediatric dentist about how long is too long and the dangers of using a nuk for an extended period of time. I’ll tell you now, there are no hard and fast rules, but there are some decent guidelines.

Then, we found a certified parenting coach with lots of experience named Lori Jo Kemper. Lori gave us some great suggestions and strategies for pulling the plug. You’ll get her best advice and ideas Thursday at 10, but here a few. 

There’s no way we couldn’t write some here because you would hate us for reading this far and getting nothing of value, and it would be rude to May, who invited me to write a few words as a guest on her blog. 

So, here you are:  Help the child pick a date on the calendar for no nuk day and then plan a celebration around that.  Or, just take it away, no fan fare, no fun, and no backing down. Or, my favorite, a visit from the nuk fairy complete with an exchange and treats.

Finally, we found a nice family from St. Louis Park, the Garcia’s. They have two little kids and were willing to listen to some advice.  It wasn’t staged, they picked the best route for them and put it into action .I think many people will relate as we followed them on their journey, complete with some infra-red camera’s at night. I hope the story is helpful for parents going through this. 

I’m also confident it will bring back a lot of memories for those of you who have already pulled the plug. I know it would have helped us years ago when we were trying to get our Joe to say  bye-bye to the “bah-bah”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 7:44 am and is filed under Parenting, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.