Today, Anna grew up in one huge leap: she willingly gave away her last pacifier.
Anna has had a pacifier obsession that started when she was just a few days old. I remember that, at the time, as a new and naive mom I was determined not to allow her to have a pacifier. I had heard all this horrible stuff about them, how they could confuse a breastfed baby and create an oral fixation and ruin your child's teeth.
And then I brought home Anna from the hospital and she cried. And cried. And then, there was more crying. She slept fitfully at night, waking constantly and nursing until I was raw. And crying, crying, crying.
The second night home, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, I sat and cried with her at the side of my bed. Then I sent Kurt to dig through the bag of leftover stuff from the baby shower and find the package of pacifiers that I had meant to return, (Thank you so much, Renee!!!).
We popped it in, and she fell asleep. It was true love. I slept more easily that night, my hand lightly propped against her mouth to hold the peacemaker, the pacifier, in. Oddly enough, it turns out that most babies have oral fixations anyway and I figured she'd grow a new set of teeth when she was 5 anyway, right? And we already knew she was an avid nursling, so... Hurrah! I was an instant convert to the paci-supporters.
That was more than three years ago. Since then, Anna has weaned down to just using her pacifier (her "binky") at nap and bed times. She used to always have two or three in bed, so she could hold one and suck at one at the same time, but in the last year she has only had one.
For several weeks now I've been telling Anna that it's about time to say bye to the binky. We decided that she could mail her pacifiers to the Binky Fairy. I had heard this idea from several sources and it seemed to have a high success rate, so it's what we went with. I suppose I could have just taken it from her outright and told her to deal with it. But why not try and make it a positive experience for her, just as having her binky these few years was positive, too?
So today she, all by herself, put all her old binkies that we could find, from under chairs and behind books, into an envelope and closed it with tape. We walked it out to the mail box to send the package to the Binky Fairy. As she put it in the mailbox, she said, "Bye bye, binkies! No more binkies for sleeping now, it's just a mouth." She was cheerful and relaxed about it, which made me feel better about taking away her special comfort. She went to bed easily and is now peacefully asleep, with "just a mouth".
In the morning, we'll go out and see what the Binky Fairy, much like her cousin the Tooth Fairy, left behind for Anna when she took away the package of pacifiers to give to some lucky baby that needs it, now that this big girl is done.
Good job, Anna! I'm so proud of you!!!
Anna has had a pacifier obsession that started when she was just a few days old. I remember that, at the time, as a new and naive mom I was determined not to allow her to have a pacifier. I had heard all this horrible stuff about them, how they could confuse a breastfed baby and create an oral fixation and ruin your child's teeth.
And then I brought home Anna from the hospital and she cried. And cried. And then, there was more crying. She slept fitfully at night, waking constantly and nursing until I was raw. And crying, crying, crying.
The second night home, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, I sat and cried with her at the side of my bed. Then I sent Kurt to dig through the bag of leftover stuff from the baby shower and find the package of pacifiers that I had meant to return, (Thank you so much, Renee!!!).
We popped it in, and she fell asleep. It was true love. I slept more easily that night, my hand lightly propped against her mouth to hold the peacemaker, the pacifier, in. Oddly enough, it turns out that most babies have oral fixations anyway and I figured she'd grow a new set of teeth when she was 5 anyway, right? And we already knew she was an avid nursling, so... Hurrah! I was an instant convert to the paci-supporters.
That was more than three years ago. Since then, Anna has weaned down to just using her pacifier (her "binky") at nap and bed times. She used to always have two or three in bed, so she could hold one and suck at one at the same time, but in the last year she has only had one.
For several weeks now I've been telling Anna that it's about time to say bye to the binky. We decided that she could mail her pacifiers to the Binky Fairy. I had heard this idea from several sources and it seemed to have a high success rate, so it's what we went with. I suppose I could have just taken it from her outright and told her to deal with it. But why not try and make it a positive experience for her, just as having her binky these few years was positive, too?
So today she, all by herself, put all her old binkies that we could find, from under chairs and behind books, into an envelope and closed it with tape. We walked it out to the mail box to send the package to the Binky Fairy. As she put it in the mailbox, she said, "Bye bye, binkies! No more binkies for sleeping now, it's just a mouth." She was cheerful and relaxed about it, which made me feel better about taking away her special comfort. She went to bed easily and is now peacefully asleep, with "just a mouth".
In the morning, we'll go out and see what the Binky Fairy, much like her cousin the Tooth Fairy, left behind for Anna when she took away the package of pacifiers to give to some lucky baby that needs it, now that this big girl is done.
Good job, Anna! I'm so proud of you!!!
1 comment:
Good job, Anna! What an accomplishment!
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