A day before Allie’s 3-month birthday, she found her thumb and ever since then has rejected the pacifier. She doesn’t suck her thumb much, only when she used to suck on the pacifier, which is to self-soothe as she falls asleep.

Today, I thought it would be interesting to reintroduce the pacifier to see what she would do with it. Obviously, if she showed too much interest, I’d take it away again so I don’t have to wean her of something later that she’s already weaned herself of. So while daddy was changing her diaper and she needed a distraction, I popped her old pacifier in her mouth. She looked surprised and smiled playfully, and then started chewing on the nipple. She then pulled it out, looked at it, giggled, turned it around and around and observed it from different angles, then put it back in her mouth for more tentative chews. She laughed, pulled it back out, turned it to its side, then tentatively gave the rim a few chews. She thought that was funny, also, and pulled it out again. She test-chewed various corners of the pacifier before deciding that the slightly thicker and harder rim between the nipple and the handle was the best for her teething needs.

So now we have a new bath-safe chew toy. She isn’t interested in sucking it, so I think she may be around the corner from self-weaning off the bottle, as well. Soon she’ll be eating what the big people eat.