The Brannan Life: Bye Bye Binkies

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Bye Bye Binkies

We've been wanting, and needing, to get rid of the boys' binkies for a long time. We originally were planning on doing it around 10 months, but they got croup.

Then we started coming up to Hume every weekend for 2 months and thought that was hard enough on them.

Then...

You get the picture. Before we knew it, they were close to two and had grown a fetish with their pacifier. (For all you moms of younger kids, around 18 months they started getting REALLY attached. I suggest you take them away before then.)

So, we decided that their birthday would be the marker for them.

Then they got RSV.

I was beginning to think God wanted them to have these binkies for eternity. =) Not really.

But we were determined this time. Our plan was to get rid of them the day after their birthday party because that was a big enough event for them to understand that they are big boys and don't need a pacifier. A few years ago, I watched a friend of mine at church have her daughter "give" her binkies to a newborn baby because "binkies are for babies, not big kids". I liked that idea. So a friend up here let me use her baby as an excuse to get rid of the binkies (just in case you're wondering... no... Baby Girl didn't keep the binkies or use them... that's gross). It was just a formality for my boys.

We FINALLY did it right after their birthday party (that was postponed because of the above mentioned RSV).

It worked great. I had prepared them and kept talking about it for a week or so before. The morning of, we packed all the binkies up, they gave their favorites one last suck, and we took them to Baby Girl. I brought with me some gifts that Baby Girl could give my boys as a thank you, while my friend slipped the jar of binkies back in my bag (they are stashed in our closet right now). The boys loved the bubble guns that Baby Girl gave them and did great "leaving" their binkies there.

Then came naptime.

They cried for their binkies. They slept maybe a total of 30 minutes that nap.

That night, they took forever to fall asleep (1.5 hours after we put them down), and they woke up about 45 minutes earlier than normal, but didn't wake up in between.

And since then, they've gotten sick again. Poor guys! But other than occasionally asking for them, that's really been the end of it. I'd been dreading it in my mind for so long, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I was picturing...which is what everyone kept telling me. E and S were used to only having their pacifiers in their crib, and didn't have them 24/7. I think that helped because they only had to get used to sleeping without it.

Let this be an encouragement to all you moms of binky-loving children... it's not that bad. Your kids will survive, and my doctor even said they'd be less whiny without it. Strange, but I've noticed that they are more content playing by themselves (which could also be them just growing up).