My son has been obsessed with his Wubbanub aka “wubby” since he was only a few weeks old. My husband and I have joked that he would probably take it to prom if we let him. It went pretty much everywhere with us and is in a majority of the photos of my son. We have loved the security and comfort that the Wubbanubs brought our little boy. As we approached his third birthday, the time had come for him to ditch the pacifier. We started making some changes in order to make the eventually removal of his Wubbanubs easier and tear free. Here is what we did.

Only use the Wubbanub at sleeptimes (or during extreme meltdowns) 

We did not achieve this by simply taking his wubbs or making him leave them in his bed. Both of those tactics lead to extreme distress for our son. Instead we would slip them away once he was up and focusing on something else. On occasion, we would ask for him to trade his wubby for something else that he wanted more. “Want to play outside? Okay, but you cannot bring your wubby”.

Only one Wubbanub allowed out at a time

Instead of having a wubby available in every room to ensure that he never went without as we did during his baby days, we only allowed one Wubby to be active in the house at a time. The out of sight, out of mind effect worked best when there was only one Wubbanub to worry about hiding from him.

Find a favorite stuffed animal

Part of the allure of the pacifier for my son is the comfort that it brings him. Rather than just taking away his pacifier and leaving him with nothing, I wanted to set him up to have a replacement item once it was gone. Our house is FILLED with stuffed animals. At around 2 years old. he started showing a preference for a little stuffed horse we got as a baby shower gift. The Easter Bunny and his new baby sister each gifted him another baby horse. This created back ups in case the original ever goes missing.

Use separate and distinguishable Wubbanubs for our infant baby

Very early on we made it clear that Adalyn’s Wubbanubs were hers. Riley bought into this and would proudly find “baby’s wubs” and return them to her. It was important be able to wean Riley off his Wubbanub without having to make our infant daughter also go without. I will say, she only uses her Wubbanubs at bedtime by her own choice, so that has helped.

Cut off the Tip of the Wubbanub Soothie 

I never brought myself to completely destroy a perfectly good Wubbanub. We did have a few that ended up with small rips in the soothies. For safety, I snipped the ends off of those Wubbanubs to remove the affected area. The first one happened long ago (which is what prompted me to find a way to fix them). Riley was devastated. However, as he got older, he would simply tossed the broken Wubbanubs aside. I kept this as a last resort solution to simply cut off the tips of all of his remaining Wubbanubs. We didn’t have to do this, but I think it is important to mention.

“Lose” the Wubbanub on vacation 

This is ultimately the last step that we took on our Wubbanub adventure. I was worried that blaming an imaginary “fairy” that comes and takes pacifiers to new little babies would cause resentment towards his new baby sister. Or that he would decide that somehow the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and all other unseen magical creatures could not be trusted. We were planning on going to visit my parents for a couple of days. They live on a farm and Riley literally does not stop moving the entire time that he is there. He hikes in the woods, moos back at the cows, rides the horses and generally skips his afternoon naps. I knew the constant activity and lack of a nap would lead to an easy bedtime. Even with the absence of his Wubbanub.

It has now been 4 weeks since Riley’s puppy dog Wubbanub disappeared from his life. He has asked for it a couple of times but really he has done extrordinarily well. He has not cried AT ALL over his absent Wubbanubs. Can I get an, AMEN?? When he does ask, “where’s wubby” our response is generally along the lines of “I don’t know, buddy. Where did you leave it?”. So far he has accepted this answer and just accepts that “its lost”.

Good Luck to all you other mean, Wubbanub stealing mamas and dadas out there!!