Today was the kid's dental appointment. It went pretty smooth, Dr. Mann is awesome with Nehemiah and he just has a way to make him feel at ease. I really give it to him and how he gets work done in his little mouth without a mouth guard.
I was blown away when he told me Nehemiah's permanent molars are coming in... What!? my little boy is getting permanent teeth? Oh! no! he is getting so big. Soon his baby teeth will fall and then the rest of the perm teeth will come in, too big for his little mouth, and then he will be entering puberty. Oh! my goodness. I cannot believe it.
The dentist tells me Nemi will have to get sealants on the next visit to protect his molars from cavities and what not. Boy oh! boy. My baby is so big.
Kimberlee, who got out of the gate fast with her first teeth VERY EARLY (at four months), is now behind schedule on getting the rest of her teeth. Go figure!
I was a very proud Mama to report to the dentist that Kimberlee no longer used her pacifier. He commended me on it and told me that the pacifier is basically a crutch for the parents. Most kids learn to self sooth very early on, but the parents have a hard time with the transition. I said, "Yes, I know my nephew is 5 and still has his pacifier." He said, "yeah! that happens a lot."
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But I think that it is easy for him to say that we should just remove the pacifier when the child is between 12 and 15 months, but he does not really know the situation in each home to say that. Like my brother had a second baby and it was not easy to remove the pacifier off the first child while the second depended on it. I think each family is different. Even my friend Marisol followed doctor's orders and took the pacifier away at one year old and now that her daughter is about to turn two she told me she would have kept it a bit longer if she could do it again. See, I think as parents we just choose to pick our battles.
As for me, it was a definite mental decision because I got to know my Kimberlee. And I saw that she did not use the pacifier to self soothe. She popped it in her mouth because it was there, not because she needed it. She would have one clipped on to her clothes and she would go find a second and she would swap them in and out like a little game. They were like toys. When I noticed that she was fine all day and even during nap/bed time) she would always spit it out of her mouth) then I knew she could totally live without it.
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