The Incident of the Pacifier in the Crib
What follows is a lightly edited journal entry.
Saturday, May 11, 2024. 5:20 am. Something interesting happened about an hour ago. I went to bed about 10:30 last night and woke up about 4:30 this morning. Waking up at 4:30 in the morning in and of itself sends me into a panic. But this morning I thought, wait a second, you went to bed at 10:30. You slept straight through until 4:30. That’s six hours. That’s a decent night’s sleep—at least for you, at least these days. This was a win. Take the win.
Okay, fine, so then my thoughts turn to how I was feeling—Which was, like virtually every morning, some combination of sad, lonely, and frightened. In the past, I would have just pulled the blanket up to my chin, buried my face deeper into the pillow, and tried to fall back to sleep. That would most likely fail, and I would get up feeling grumpy and cranky and make myself some coffee and hope that I would feel better when the sun came up.
But this morning I chose to lie in bed for a while and think about what I was feeling. Okay, so, sad, lonely, and frightened. What’s up with that? And I sort of start free associating, solo brainstorming. If your beloved were sleeping next to you—I thought—you would hold him from behind, and that would bring you comfort. Okay, so having something to hold onto—
And just like that, my mind reels back to the incident of the pacifier. The removal of the pacifier. The theft of the pacifier. The wrenching away of the pacifier while I slept. The waking up to find the pacifier gone, and flying into an immediate panic. The crying. The calling for Mommy. Mommy coming, Mommy coming cribside or bedside, whichever it was, at whatever age I was, probably somewhere between 2 and 3.
Initially, my mother claimed that she had no idea where my paci was. Later—like, not weeks or months or years later, but within hours or days of allowing me to believe it had mysteriously disappeared—she confessed, as it were, that she took it away while I slept, because I was too old for it. At which point my bewilderment, which in itself had been disturbing, turned in an instant to a sense of betrayal, which was devastating.
That was an early and indelible instance of an experience I had repeatedly as a small child—Recognizing that my world was unsafe, but thinking, feeling, believing that I had no choice but to maintain my poker face and carry on to the best of my ability as though nothing were wrong. In terms of trauma responses and the sympathetic nervous system, I would call that some combination of freeze and fawn.
And it goes without saying that I’ve never forgotten this incident, which I have been recounting in my mind’s eye (complete with audio) for some 60 years now. So this morning, at 4:30, the next thing I do is grab my phone off my nightstand and, following up on a sudden hunch, google “transitional object,” finding this from the APA Dictionary of Psychology:
a doll, blanket, or other thing spontaneously chosen and used by a child to ease the anxiety of separation from their first external object, the mother, until the child has established an internal object, or mental representation of her, that provides a sense of security and comfort. [first described by British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott (1896–1971)]
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Next I look up “pacifier as transitional object,” and I find this from an article on thumb sucking and pacifiers on the Prevea Health website:
Don't allow them to have the pacifier all the time. Think about pacifiers as “transitional objects” to help transition from wakefulness to sleep or through a stressful situation.
I mean...right? Just as I suspected. So...there must be a right way to wean your small child off their pacifier, right? More googling. I find an article on “Pacifier Use In Children and When To Transition” on the Playwell Pediatric Dentistry blog. I learn that long-term pacifier use is terrible for kids’ orthodonture.
Very commonly, we miss the off-ramp for non-nutritive habits like the pacifier. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are in agreement: the pacifier is recommended from 0 to 6 months as it is associated with reduction in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The pacifier is also recommended because it's far easier to eliminate one day than a thumb! However, the AAP recommends pulling the pacifier at age 1 in part because continued pacifier use is associated with an increased risk of ear infections (acute otitis media).
So, once again, proof of the validity of my long-held maxim: My mother may have been crazy, but she had a point. You go, Mom. You were right to think it was important to get that damn paci away from me. Nevertheless, you kinda used a hammer to swat a fly. And I can forgive you for that.
But again, there must be a right way to wean your small child off their pacifier, right? For that, I find another online resource, “How to Get Your Toddler to Stop Using a Pacifier” on the Big Little Feelings website. They suggest a three-step process that starts with confining pacifier use to naps and bedtime; then introducing to your toddler the idea of saying good-bye to their pacifier; then creating some kind of ritual around giving up the pacifier. I won’t go into detail about the Paci Fairy and how she works her magic; the point is, there’s a Paci Fairy, and I never heard a word about her!
Then there’s a section of the article on what you should do when your child is sad about missing their paci. Again, no need to go into detail, but suffice it to say it involves acknowledging their feelings and supporting them in developing a relationship with another transitional object, like a soft toy or a blanket. Also suffice it to say that it does not involve telling your kid you took their pacifier away while they were asleep because they were too old for it, and then lying to them about it before telling them the truth about how you betrayed their trust.
Then I moved on to the elephant in the room of my mind where I keep my childhood; namely, my early and compulsive masturbation, which I am pretty convinced had to do with being robbed of my paci suddenly, secretly and without the benefit of any participation by the Paci Fairy. More google. And that’s when I found A Parent’s Guide: Birth Through Adolescence from the Everett Clinic in Snohomish County, Washington. Page 32 includes this sentence:
Some children masturbate frequently because they are unhappy about something, such as having their pacifier taken away.
Rimshot! Ya think? I mean, finding that sentence was a blessing. It was also a kind of Seinfeld moment—or really more of a Woody Allen moment. Something very New York City Jewish baby-boomer neurotic. The next chapter of this story has to do with my thoughts about how obsessive masturbation as a toddler played out as I got older, particularly as I got older in the body and the brain of a young gay man. What that ultimately leads to, if anything can be said ultimately to lead to anything. As if anything is so linear, even allowing for how multifactorial life is. But that is all for another day.