I was one of those new moms that
swore I would take away my child’s beloved binky once he turned one. I figured
it’d be easy to just take the binky with the bottle and call it good. Until I
realized just how beloved that binky was… and how not so lovely my child became
when he didn’t have it.
The truth is, that binky became my
crutch, my little hope for sanity. Whether it was at the crowded grocery store,
the park, or even in the comfort of my home, whenever Keegan started to throw a
tantrum or cry inconsolably, I turned to the trusted binky. It would calm him
instantly and for me that was a relief. So his first birthday obviously came
and went. We tried a time or two to take it away, but gave in way too soon.
After a few months we started to only give it
to him at during naps and at bedtime with hopes that we’d shortly end that too.
Yea… just one sleepless night and you could forget that. I think we made it a
whole hour before getting up to find the binkies we had hid.
So here we are, coming up on K’s
second birthday and he still uses a binky… or he did, until two nights ago.
That’s right, I said DID. I noticed bumps around K’s lips from him sucking the
pacifier too hard and decided that was it. They had to go. We threw them all away
and gave up cold turkey. I admit, when
he woke up at 2AM screaming for his binky, I so wished I hadn’t thrown them
away.
The first night, K woke up twice.
Once at two, when he was screaming bloody murder and then again at 4am. When he
woke up at 4 he started to scream for his binky, and once he realized he wasn’t
going to get it, he began begging for cheese. Who wants chees at 4am? Only my
child. I obviously got up to get the
cheese, because I knew I wouldn’t get any sleep otherwise. After I gave K the
cheese he decided he wanted to eat it in the living room on the couch and watch
cartoons… at 4 AM! Did I mention it was
a weeknight, meaning Mikael and I had to work the next day? Yea, poor planning
on our part. But K survived the first
night. And the second night was even better. He only woke up once and only took
a few minutes to calm down before falling back into his sweet little dreams.
Night three is just starting, but
he didn’t even ask for his binky when he fell asleep. I’m seeing the progress
already. He’ll forget all about them by this time next week. Now I have to
decide whether or not I want to start the process all over again and give our
new bundle a binky when he comes. Of course, if I do, it will be after we’re
done breastfeeding, so at least I’ll have a couple months to decide.
We went cold turkey, but there are
lots of different methods for weaning children from binkies or pacifiers. Below
are a few articles I found around the web with good tips.
Find what works for you and let me know how it
goes.
My son was so attached to his pacifier that it started to become a real problem. We could not go anywhere without making sure that we had a pacifier in hand. My friend absolutely raved about the bye bye binky method so we decided to give it a try (she found it at www.bye-bye-binky.com ). All I can say is WOW, worked beautifully for my son with no tantrums, not even one! Super easy and four days later he had no interest in his binky. We really were amazed… highly recommended… Amber
ReplyDeleteI am going to have to try that with our 2nd. I thought i wouldn't give him a binky, but it's the only way any of get any sleep!
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