This little girl has me questioning my decision to "retire" the pacifier this week.
After many weeks of sickness over the holidays, Abigail became VERY attached to her binky, and her two favorite dolls. It has gotten where she basically has to have all three, all the time. If you leave the house with out one... Well, Heaven help us all.
So, after debating for a few weeks, on Monday I decided it was time to get rid of the binky. I gathered them all up, except for one. The one I left out, I snipped the end off- I'd heard this is the way to go. Well, for the most part, she is totally fine. She doesn't ask for it anymore. She plays all day just fine with out it. She has become less clingy, and doesn't need her dolls all the time anymore either.
The flipside? She doesn't really sleep.
Well, sometimes she does. But nap times are a huge struggle, and some days just don't happen. And we've had 2 nights now where she has been up for about an hour and a half just fussing. I give her the snipped pacifier, but of course, that isn't what she wants.
SO... I'm need help! Do I just need to stick it out a few more days? Do I just give in for now, and hope it will be easier in a few months? I don't mind her sleeping with one. I just don't like that she was needing it ALL the time.
Any words of encouragement, or discouragement? haha... hurry fast, before I give in and go get the ziplock baggy out of the kitchen cabinet!
7 comments:
Abigail's grandmother on her father's side was a big binky-ette. Her thumb was her favorite. Many things were tried to break her of what she wanted, but it wasn't until she (g-ma) wanted to stop that she did.
It's possible Abigail has some of those genes. Not that Abigail's father has any.
Love
Baba
Teresa had the same issue's w/ Curt when he was Abi's age. She tried to wing him...and it was a HUGE ordeal. What ended up happening is once we didn't make a big deal over it..he stopped making a deal over it..and he just lost interest! So maybe just chill over it for a while, let her have her binkie, maybe not ALL her dolls..let the kiddo catch up on her sleep (and mom catch up on her sleep) and try again in a month or so?? That's GREAT Auntie Jeni's opinion!!
good luck..love you lots!
I nannied for two families while living in Virginia and Washington-DC. Those years brought me some experience from the ins and outs of binkydom. For the first family, an out-of-sight/out-of-mind method worked pretty well with the little boy. They also had a baby girl but she didn't have as much of a fascination for binkies as her brother did. The out-of-sight method worked quite well for binkies--AND sippies when it came time to move on to big kid cups.
With the other family I nannied twin girls. They were such a delight! There were two methods that seemed to help transition the girls (maybe because there were two of them, we had to have TWO methods, haha). Method #1: Explain to the child that they may have their binky only during nap-times and bedtimes. Continue for a month and move to next method.
Method #2: Place sticky notes (or other hand-made signs), counting down from ten days to nine, and so on. All the way to "Bye-bye Binky Day!" For the adults, I recommend renting--or NetFlix'ing--the movie "Bye Bye Birdie". Create your own "bye-bye binky" tune if you wish :-) It's fun to sing it each time the child takes a sticky note off the fridge.
At the end of the 10 days, they put all of the binkies in a bucket and placed it on the front porch. When the door rang later, the bucket that held their binkies had been replaced with two ceramic ducks. Their original, which they called "Oh-so-lovely", had broken. The mom had found two more somewhere so she bought the ducks and save them for the dreaded day of bye-bye-binkies. To some surprise, it went over SUPERBLY well. The girls were between the age of 2-3 though, so it is always good to judge according to what you feel your child needs.
As the saying goes, "if at first you don't succeed, try... try... again." Any method is simply that, a method, not perfection in the least. I hope something I've said is helpful, if not entertaining :-) BIG HUGS to ya Heather. I think you and Charles are doing a FANtastic job with Abigail.
PS)I loved your post on the trapeze date Charles took you on. You're so brave! I squiggled in my chair when I saw y'all jump off the platform and go for the next bar, haha. I'm such a chicken. It looked amazing.
I only have experiance with Kaiya so I hope it might help. Kaiya was very attached to her paci . When she was 16 months old I decided to get rid of hers. I had also heard of cutting a hole and tried it with her however, she didn't like it and it only made matter worse. So I made a rule that her paci didn't leave her crib. When she got up in the morning I would pick her up and have her toss it in the crib. If she wanted it I would set her back down in her bed. She would take a couple of sucks then want me to pick her up. So we would repeat the process. It got to the point that she would toss it out of her mouth before I could even pick her up. (However, it took a couple of days for her to understand that paci was no longer an any time thing.)
When she was completely okay without having paci during the day I started on night time. Instead of giving her a paci, I gave her a sippy with water. So any time she had the urge to suck she could. (Since water was only good for her I didn't see any harm in letting her have it after her teeth were brushed.) I know I was replacing her paci with something else however, it was something she could carry around and still have an attachment to, but it wasn't always in her mouth. It worked well for her.
Hope some of this might help you.
My girl's were attached to there binky too. After we got rid of the binky for daytime, I made a rule that the binky could be used for sleep time but didn't leave the crib. Sometimes the rule was more for me not to give in than for the kids. We also let them use it while strapped in the car seat for long trips. The girl's did just fine with it and it allowed us all to get the sleep we needed. After a couple of months, they didn't need it for naps/bed anymore. It made the transition a lot easier on me especially.
oh hard! i have no idea...but i'll be curious to know how it goes!
I can't help ...but I love that picture....what kind of camera do you have??
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