The Pacifier Problem

I feel like I've been pretty average on the worrying-scale of new moms. One thing that has been really stressing me out, though, is deciding what to do about the pacifier.

Levi  loves his pacifier. Which is great because at least we have that option. But I'm wondering if we shouldn't allow him to become so dependent on it?

The thing is, I don't think he'll have dental issues or keep using it until he's in kindergarten or something. My only concern is that it will ruin his sleep; I've had too many friends tell me that they've had to get up frequently at night to put their babies' pacifiers back in, and I really want to avoid that.

On the other hand, Levi currently only needs to have his pacifier put in 0-2 times per night, which seems pretty reasonable to me. And it's a really easy way for Tygan to soothe Levi ... a tool that he really doesn't want to do without. What's more, we've been experimenting with withholding the pacifier, and, well, it ain't pretty. Weaning him off of it would be a lot of work.

BUT on the other other hand, they say it's even harder to wean from the pacifier when they're 5 months and up because they start to establish object permanence—they know there's a pacifier around here somewhere! And there's a sleep regression or two lurking in Levi's future; if we don't ditch the pacifier now, is he going to become one of those those babies that demands it every two hours at night, like my friends' babies? If I knew that was going to happen down the road, I would absolutely quit cold-turkey right now, because his (well, more accurately, my) night-time sleep is my #1 priority.

*sigh* Right now we're doing a middle-of-the-road approach where we only use the pacifier if he "needs" it, but "needs" is a difficult line to pin down, and I hate constantly being in pacifier limbo. We use it to help him go down for naps, and to keep him calm in the car, but we don't use it for bedtime, and we occasionally use it in the middle of the night. I feel like the inconsistency is confusing for Levi, and for us as parents too.

So. Do we ditch the pacifier, or embrace it? (My guess is we keep being wishy-washy about it until I stop being stubborn and just give the kid his binky already. But I'm open to advice.)