This tactic is slightly on the devious and sneaky side, but it worked for us and worked for every one we told to try it.
We have had multiple people tell us they did this with success.
Mainly we see parent use this to get a child off of a pacifier.
When our daughter was getting to be a bit old for her pacifier (aka "binky") we tried several ways to wean her from it.
We talked to her about being a big girl and how big girls do not have "binkies".
That was fine during the day, but when she was tired, she quickly forgot about that.
We had her throw it away, but she would get up and dig through the trash 30 minutes after she went to bed.
One day she was watching Dora the Explorer when I had a brainstorm.
One of the characters in Dora is Swiper the Fox.
Swiper swipes things.
If he gets them and you do not catch him, they are gone.
Well one day she was downstairs and I came running down the steps yelling I just saw Swiper running out of her room.
We "checked' to make sure everything was still there.
I finally asked her where her "binky" was.
It was nowhere to be found.
Swiper must have taken it.
She was sad, but we consoled her by saying that at least Swiper did not take anything she needed anymore.
She did not come out of her bed that night looking for her "binky" and never asked for it again.