Paci free!
Jason and I have been planning to cut Rachel's pacifier habit on her birthday, or maybe the day after. :) Since she turned one, she's only been getting it during nap time or bed time, so its not a horrid habit, but we decided when she turns 2, we're cutting it altogether.
Last night I thought we'd have a practice run, just to see how hard the separation would be. She did great! I was even washing her special blankets and so she went to bed with nothing she holds dear. :) We made a big deal out of her getting rid of the pacis. She put them in a special bag for the baby and then we put them in the baby's room. We took the other one sitting on the counter (that belongs to my Mom) and put it in its own bag, to bring back to Nana. I kept wondering *does she have any idea what this all really means?* She got out of bed a few times, wandering around the house, acting like something was surely not right. She never did mention the paci, so I kept reassuring her that her blankets would be out of the dryer soon.
Turns out, the dryer was going to take like 45 minutes and she was so exhausted, we went into the baby's room and "borrowed" one of her new silky blankets. That did the trick! She went fast asleep and slept through the night!
The hard part was this morning. She woke up a bit too early just sobbing and looking all over the house for her paci. It looked so pathetic... I started to cave, feeling sorry for her and then decided to just remind her that "we're too big for pacis" and she went back to sleep. It was cute how distraught she looked though.
Anyway, such a long post about such a little thing, but in our house, its BIG news!
I'm hoping to stick with it now, so I don't provoke or confuse her.
After we cross this hurdle, its potty training time! Woo-hoo!
Comments
Gina, as for the caving... we're kind of stuck now. We threw the pacifiers away, so she can't "go back". :)
We've decided that I'm the mean parent at our house. :) Jason has wanted to cave more than once, the second she puts her lip out and says "Can I have a paci, Daddy?" She's got him wrapped around all her fingers. :) Nap time today was a bit harder... she was tempted to play around and not go to sleep, because her paci usually helps her just lay down and not fight it. She took about an hour to fall asleep, but once she's out, she does fine. Someone recently told me if you stick with something for 48 hours (and I mean really stick with it) it becomes habit and your child will let it go.
Here's hoping!
Looks like we beat the paci fight. Rachel was very easy to stop the bottle habit too, so maybe its just her personality. She went to bed last night w/out even mentioning the paci and slept all night long. This morning she woke up cheery and acted like it hadn't crossed her mind. We broke Ethan of the habit at 6 months old, so you can see why we were nervous, waiting so much longer with Rachel. :)
I think the tying the paci to a balloon and sening it off into the sky idea is brilliant! I will try that on our next child, if we need some distracting ways. :)