January 28, 2025
Pacifier Weaning with Lindsay DeOliveira: Podcast Episode #275
Kristin Revere and Lindsay DeOliveira discuss pacifier weaning in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas. Lindsay is the founder of Soothe Beginnings Pacifier Company and is a Certified Baby Registry Consultant with Gold Coast Doulas.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my friend Lindsay DeOliveira! Lindsey recently joined the Gold Coast team as a baby registry consultant, but she is an amazing entrepreneur in so many ways and an author! Lindsay is a certified breastfeeding counselor through the International Doula Institute, and she received her baby registry certification through Be Her Village.
Before entering motherhood and the baby world, Lindsay worked as a licensed optician for ten years. She’s also the founder of both Rockstar Dad Academy and Soothe Beginnings. As a dedicated mom, she believes safety and convenience can seamlessly coexist, guiding parents confidently through their journey with a passion for supporting families. Lindsay combines her expertise in baby products to create practical, safe solutions for both parents and babies alike.
Welcome, Lindsay!
Thank you for having me!
I am excited to talk about pacifier weaning and get into all of your expertise surrounding pacifiers, since you have Soothe Beginnings, which is a pacifier company. You’ve also been helping families prepare for birth and baby and also you have a book that’s out dedicated to that pacifier weaning stage?
Yeah, it’s a busy life, but a good one!
I hear you! So let’s start with your book. Tell us a bit about it.
It all started with Soothe Beginnings and launching a pacifier. One of the big barriers for parents is, well, how am I going to eventually get the kiddo off the pacifier? I knew as a first-time parent, I was petrified. Pacifier weaning and potty training – those were the two things I was most scared of as a new parent. So being evidence-based with pacifiers, I’m not trying to keep your kid hooked on a pacifier until they’re in kindergarten here. We know that the evidence points at getting rid of the pacifier in an earlier age. Young toddlerhood is a great time to do it. So a lot of parents don’t have direction or guidance on the best ways to go about this. What I did was consulted with some sleep consultants and created a really awesome pacifier weaning guide that really took off and did so well. Parents found that resource to be immensely helpful. And one of the really important steps to pacifier weaning is talking to your little toddler about it. “Hey, you know, it’s time that you’re growing up, and we’re going to have to start replacing our comfort items. You’re becoming a big kid, so it’s time to get rid of the pacifier, or that time is coming soon.” Things like that. So navigating a conversation, especially for a toddler, is really challenging, I think, for a lot of adults.
So because of the weaning guide being such a hit and helping so many families, the idea came to be of, let’s make a children’s story of having a pacifier and it’s time for her to go on and help another little baby because the baby she’s been helping for the last year or so is starting to grow up and move on and not need her anymore, and it’s okay.
And I am so with you on teaching tools for children with any major change, whether it’s introducing another sibling, potty training. It makes perfect sense. And I was thrilled to be able to add it to our resource library for not only postpartum clients but also our sleep clients.
Thank you! I love the fact that people are finding it helpful. That was the goal of it, right? How can we help these parents? It just makes me happy to see that. And to your point exactly about these transitions in life, even if you’re adding another sibling – that was a big one I was actually seeing. Parents were saying, I’ve got a toddler, but I’ve got another baby on the way. What are we doing about this whole pacifier weaning situation? So that was one of the scenarios we put in the book that Patty needs to go on and help another, maybe a sister or even a brother.
Right. I love it so much. And certainly there’s also part of preparing for baby, if you have a toddler who isn’t sleeping through the night, getting that adjusted. The pacifier goes hand in hand with some of that work. How can our listeners find your book?
Patty the Pacifier’s Next Adventure is available on Amazon. It’s available on Kindle, and it’s even available on TikTok Shop.
Love it. So as far as your top tips – I don’t want you to reveal everything in the book, but I would love to hear from you on your favorite tips for our listeners who are either ready to begin the weaning stage or wanting to plan ahead for when that needs to happen.
Preparation is absolutely everything. And when I’m talking about preparation, we’re talking about age-appropriate, introducing other comfort items. So your toddler’s having some big emotions. Don’t necessarily go to give the pacifier as the first line of defense here. Giving cuddles, affection, a teddy bear, things like that. Other sources of comfort before we just keep associating the pacifier as the only sense of comfort. This is going to happen way before you even start the process of pacifier weaning – introducing the other comforts.
The other thing – this is a very simple step that can totally backfire if you don’t do it or don’t think to do it. Doing a pacifier round-up. Again, before you even start the process of pacifier weaning, do that pacifier round-up. You don’t want to be three or four days going strong and then all of a sudden, your two-year-old finds one and is hooked back on the paci, and they’re so much more attached to it now because they know they’re not going to get it back. So you just want to kind of preemptively do the roundup. That way you are in control of when they get a pacifier.
Exactly, yes. Such a good tip. I mean, the same thing goes for stuffed animals or blankets. You really need to plan ahead for any big changes that might result in a meltdown, for example. And how does that correlate with feeding, since you’re also a breastfeeding counselor?
Yeah, I mean, knowledge is power. Having tips and tools in your back pocket is everything. It really truly is everything. So if you are looking to wean your baby off the pacifier and they are under a year old, it is going to look different than if they’re over a year old, okay? So that’s something to keep in mind, as well. If they’re under a year old, they’re still going to be bottle feeding or breastfeeding ahead of bedtime. So whether they’re a toddler or a baby, a really big, key piece here is going to be their bedtime routine, and whatever that looks like, finding a way to shift it and still give them comfort but a solid set of sleep cues. That way no matter their age, whether they’re still breastfeeding or not, they still know what to expect. We’re just kind of removing the pacifier out of the equation with a solid sleep routine.
Excellent. That makes sense. So since we are chatting about pacifiers, I’d love for you to fill us in on your own brand, Soothe Beginnings.
So I went through all the pacifiers when my daughter was a baby. And any new parent can tell you: it can be a real source of frustration, at 2:00 in the morning, you’ve got a crying baby, and you’re just trying to find a pacifier your baby will take. So it started out as, this needs to be more convenient for parents. And there were a lot of features I didn’t like about pacifiers. Some of them were plastic or latex or difficult to clean or trapped water. So it wasn’t convenient. I wasn’t loving the pacifiers on the market. So I came up with the concept of the interchangeable pacifier that didn’t have any of those features I didn’t like, but in the process, I was learning so much about the pacifier industry and regulations, and I realized there is a huge gap in what the regulations are and what is truly needed for our babies’ safety.
I learned so much from you when you gave a presentation on safety at the sleep consultant retreat. It is astounding and also the very limited options when it comes to eco-friendly pacifiers for families who value being stewards of the environment.
Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of the pacifiers that are being marketed as eco-friendly aren’t, and the ones that are marketed as natural are actually health risks. But creating the natural product is actually harmful to the environment. There’s a lot of marketing practices that I don’t necessarily agree with, unfortunately. And you know this – in doing baby registries, there’s a lot of marketing gimmicks that are out there that are preying on desperate parents that truly aren’t giving the baby the best thing for their development, for their health, or for the environment.
Right. Exactly. I love that you saw a problem and created a solution in so many different ways, having different options that work with each child’s unique needs and avoiding any sort of issue with the sterilization and being able to have a subscription and order more of the nipples. Let’s talk about some of the risks with keeping a pacifier too long or not sterilizing it properly, for example.
So a lot of parents don’t know this, and I was in that camp myself. Most parents don’t know you’re actually supposed to swap out your child’s pacifier because they do start to break down over time. Now, there’s going to be two different ways to go about this. If you are using a natural rubber, which is outright latex, pacifier, they break down very quickly, which can be a choking hazard, not to mention the allergen hazard that they pose, as well. The latex ones break down even just out in the UV, and they start expanding just from heat and being sucked on, which isn’t helping your child’s oral development. So I’m not a fan of those. But those need very frequent replacing – every four to six weeks.
With silicone, you can go every six to eight weeks with replacing those. Now, the silicone ones are great because you can sanitize them. They’re not breaking down with the heat or the UV, which is great. You can sanitize them much easier and thoroughly, and they’re not leeching anything. They don’t expand. But yeah, you do want to replace the silicone ones every six to eight weeks, and sanitizing is really important to do every single day because pacifiers grow bacteria and yeast. You don’t really want that in your child’s mouth. On a daily basis, you want to make sure you’re giving a sanitized pacifier.
Now, when we’re talking about doing the pacifier replacement, that’s where no matter what brand of pacifier you do, I recommend putting it on an auto-subscription if that is available. That’s something that Soothe Beginnings will be launching that you can put on auto-order, your nipple replacements. So it’s something that you don’t even have to think about. And especially for those eco-conscious parents, silicone is actually recyclable. And a lot of people don’t know that, either, but it is recyclable, so you don’t have to deal with all that waste. You’re not dealing with a bunch of plastic shields getting thrown out, so it’s a lot less wasteful and a bit more friendly to the earth, which is cool.
That’s very cool! So again, if you are dealing with finding the perfect pacifier for your child, and then once you’ve found it, getting them to part with it when it’s the appropriate time to transition, what are your other tips for families on how to choose the right pacifier and then let it go as needed?
So with pacifiers, it’s really interesting because you see a lot of the orthodontic and narrow based pacifiers being sold and dentists saying, these are fantastic! Well, here’s the thing. The dentists are more so worried about the child’s teeth, which aren’t even there for that first year of life, which is around the time I actually recommend starting to do the weaning with the pacifier. It’s recommended to start weaning around that age but up to by age four, by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentists. As early as six months, but as late as four years. That’s a pretty big window. I’m a huge fan of before age two if you can. Around age one is fantastic because it’s before those really big feelings start to hit. So it’s definitely a bit easier, and it lets you kind of play more into your child’s personality and whimsy and have fun with the process a little bit more easily before those really big attachments and emotions start to hit. So with choosing that pacifier, you actually want to look for a wider base versus that narrower base, because that first year of life, what’s the most important thing going on for baby? Eating! So working the proper muscles for oral facial development and to support feeding is extremely important. We’re not worried about teeth that are not even here yet, right? So it’s going to be the opposite of what you’re looking at for a two or three year old, for example, with a full mouth of teeth. So those wider based pacifiers are actually better, believe it or not. And it sounds very weird, but that is what’s working the right muscles and better for the muscles in the face at that point in time.
With that, we don’t like the cherry bulb shaped ones or anything bulbous on the end or those flat pacifiers. Those are not great. You want to look more at kind of the triangle test that you look for in baby bottles with the pacifiers. So it’s going to be a little bit similar.
The other element that you want to be aware of is silicone is a lot safer and a lot more hygienic and a lot more allergy friendly than the latex, aka natural rubber, as well.
If you are a parent that is really interested in doing plastic-free, that is definitely something that is available in doing a silicone. Our pacifiers have a cap and a shield and then the silicone nipples. The cap and the shield are recycled paper with a plant-based resin. So you’re not dealing with the plastic or anything like that. But entirely dishwasher safe. I know for new parents, convenience is a really, really big factor. Again, why I’m a huge fan of the silicone because you can do all of that with those, which is pretty cool.
So when it comes time for pacifier weaning, it really is going to be individual to each family and each child. You’re going to have some kiddos that are going to spit it out at six months old and never look back. You’re going to have some that it is their absolute best friend in the world. My daughter was obsessed with her pacifier, and she was very distractable at the age we weaned her off the pacifier, and that was something we leaned into about her personality. She didn’t care about being a big kid. She was just happy go lucky, for the most part, and was very distractable. So we leaned into the distraction element, and it worked out really, really well for her. So each child’s personality and weaning journey, they’re all going to look different. That is okay. That’s why we have different strategies and different approaches to doing the pacifier weaning.
A lot of parents nowadays – I’m sure you’ve heard it – a lot of us don’t want to do the cold turkey type situation.
Yeah, very gradual.
We like preparation. We like talking to our child. We like letting them explore their feelings, and we like having more of a weaning versus that cold turkey. So for some kiddos, they actually can become hyper-aware of their pacifier, and that happened to us. We tried reducing the use of pacifiers, and she started hoarding and hiding them. So I realized I was making her more fixated on it and making it worse, so we did in fact need to switch over to a cold turkey approach. But in a gentler way. It wasn’t a traumatic event. She actually never even cried once we did get rid of it. So there are different approaches, but if you’re going to down that line of weaning and you’re like, this is actually getting worse, I do mention how we can switch over to the other way, and that’s okay.
Right. That is excellent advice. And again, just like sleep consulting, you can’t follow the same plan for every family. It’s customized based on each child and the household needs. Great advice! And you have another business, Rockstar Dad Academy. Tell us about that.
So I just, through this whole process of starting Soothe Beginnings, I just wanted to be the person I needed as a first-time parent. And I’ve truly enjoyed getting to talk to first-time parents and easing some of their anxieties. And in doing that, my husband and I discovered how much the dads want help. The dads want more, and they just don’t know how to support their wives, but that is all they want to do. So it’s been a really cool transition seeing what dads are becoming.
So my husband was in fact a rockstar when I met him, and that’s what he did. So the idea came to be, he lived this crazy cool life, and now he’s a rockstar dad. He is so involved with our daughter. They are absolute best friends. He loves being a dad to her and being so involved. If she’s upset or sick, he’s the one she wants. So seeing that transition from the life he had into the parent and dad he is now is something that we together are working with new dads on where they can learn how to communicate with their wife, how to actually support their partner. One of the things that we go through that we can put on the dads to make them feel empowered is the safety proofing. Baby proofing the house. We call that Pyrotech Week in Rockstar Dad Academy. So they get to do some of the things that are actually going to be helpful to support mom.
I love it. And dads like to have actionable steps, whether assembling nursery items, as you said, safety proofing or doing research on the best products and brands and understanding recalls and how to stay on top of things. So I love that you’ve combined the education element, the product development, and then with joining our baby registry team, helping families choose items like your pacifiers, but everything from baby monitors to whatever their customized goals are. If they are eco-friendly, selecting the proper furniture and baby gear, or if they’re working within a budget, helping them work through that and even finding the best places to register. With some of the big brand shops closing down, not every city has their own custom boutiques that you can do in-person shopping at. Helping to navigate that whole process, as times have changed, is also important.
Yeah, it’s an overwhelming thing now because there are so many products out there. There’s so much of, you’ve got to have this; you’ve got to have that; we loved this; we loved that. It gets to be such an overwhelm for the new mom building that registry, and it doesn’t need to be that way. It can be simpler. It can be easier. And you would very much be surprised with all the gimmicks out there that actually are not helpful. And the really cool thing about building your registry is that it’s going to look different family to family because what is a great product and source of convenience for my family may not fit your lifestyle or what’s going to be convenient in your life with a new baby, and that’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That is the cool thing about having options, but it’s also the overwhelming thing, and that’s where just seeing the weight and the stress melt off the mom when her registry is done is the coolest thing. That has become one of the biggest sources of stress on her is to get that done and get that organized and kind of wading through all the research and trying to absorb all this information but now having to make decisions with experience they haven’t had yet.
Right. And there’s always that deadline, whether it’s a company baby shower or personal baby showers. Or if you’ve had children before, a sprinkle or diaper party. Figuring out what would be helpful to receive as a gift from others and sometimes that can also be services. So as baby registry consultants, we help guide our families not only to choose the right products, but also look into services that might make their life easier.
And if you’re a dad listening to this, get it for your wife. It’s not something she may know to ask for and may not realize until after you do it, how much stress was on her plate about getting that done, and now she can breathe. So she may not ask for the help herself, but you know, it is one of the most helpful things you can give.
Yeah, and certainly to sign up for Rockstar Dad Academy. For our listeners who are expecting, that would be a nice gift for your partner to help them feel prepared and give them some actionable items to be able to help not only in pregnancy but certainly after baby arrives.
Yeah. I mean, having a partner that had learned what to do – we went through our communication challenges and rediscovered. One of the things that we go through with the dads is really interesting. We’ve all heard of love languages, for example, right? And how before you’re pregnant, you and your partner take a love language test and you get your results. Well, during pregnancy, for the most part, that actually changes once mom becomes pregnant. So you have to kind of rediscover this new stage of life and how to support your partner, communicate with your partner, and make them feel loved. That in itself is going to make life so much easier. I’m a much better mom and I have a much happier child because I have a very supportive husband who is helpful where it matters and with what we need. So it does make a huge difference. It’s amazing.
It is amazing, and the more involved dads we have, the better the transition in that postnatal phase.
Yeah, that’s a huge one. If mom is going through any kind of trauma after the fact, postpartum depression, the statistics for that being unsupported are kind of scary in how it relates to even divorce, believe it or not.
It does. We’ve seen that as doulas personally in households. That tension – marriages can end because of the lack of support or the stress, the lack of sleep, certainly. That’s one of the biggest factors, not only in perinatal mood disorders but also in relationships and the health of a relationship.
Yeah, we tend to not be our best selves when exhausted!
Exactly, and if the dad’s exhausted, then he doesn’t know how to help, and he’s just trying to get by and change a diaper here and there but has to perform at work. There’s just a lot of pressure in those transitions. I am with you about preparation, that thoughtful baby registry, planning for the hands-on partners and taking classes, like Rockstar Dad Academy, and then certainly looking into products that won’t be a waste of money and won’t end up in a landfill, that will create value for your entire family and maybe allow more sleep or easier transitions. I love everything that you’re doing with Soothe Beginnings! How can our listeners find your site and your social media?
All the places! We have a lot of the Soothe Beginnings website, a lot of really cool courses, the pacifier products. You can always reach out to me through there. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, @soothebeginnings. I’m Lindsay DeOliveira, and you can always catch me on there. You can also find my husband, Justin DeOliveira, who’s also doing Rockstar Dad Academy on Facebook, as well.
Excellent. And for our listeners who would like to hire you for baby registry services, you can find Lindsay at Gold Coast Doulas and on our social media. You can work with anyone, anywhere. It’s the joy of this virtual service. It’s very exciting, and we’re thrilled to have you on the Gold Coast team. And congrats on your new book!
Thank you! I’m so excited. Gold Coast Doulas is something I’ve admired for quite some time now. I love everything you guys are doing to not only support and empower but also to change and to create change in this landscape to make life better for new families. So I appreciate you guys and everything you do and everything you’ve built. I’m honored to a part of it at this point!
Well, thank you very much! I’m excited to continue our chat, and obviously, when your pacifier brand launches to the public, we’ll have you back on Ask the Doulas!
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