The road to no paci....

Chris has commented on more than one occasion that we needed to break Devin of the paci at night. I never really saw a problem with it since she only uses it at night and for naps at home. She leaves it in her bed every morning and doesn't use it during the day. But oh, does she love her paci at night.

From January 11

Each night when I tell her its time to get ready for bed, paci is the first thing she runs to her room to get. So keeping my child's extremely persistent personality in mind, I decided that instead of just making paci disappear or convincing her to get rid of a perfectly good paci, we would let it get broken. The first thing I did was a few nights before we planned to do this, I started only putting one in her bed rather than three. No problems there.

So on a Friday morning after she had put her paci, lovie and doggie in her bed and told them goodbye for the day, I got paci and snipped a little bit off the end. I have read about this method and thought this would be my first approach for trying this. That night, she went to her room with so much delight to get paci but when she returned, she kept whining about paci. Chris and I kept reminding her that paci was in her bed and acting as if nothing was different. She eventually brought it to me and showed me. She kept putting it in her mouth and taking it out right away because it didn't feel right. She told me it was broken no less than 200 times. We talked about paci for awhile while I was getting her pajamas on and while she was picking a book to read. I reminded her that she would be OK because she takes a nap at school everyday without a paci and she is fine. I even told her she could take it to bed so she could have it if she thought she really needed it, but before I knew it she walked over to her diaper pail and threw it away which was a total surprise to me. She opened and closed the pail a few times and told it goodbye and hesitated and then got her book and climbed in my lap. I was so proud of her for handling it so well. She took a little longer than usual to go to sleep but she didn't cry and did go to sleep.

From January 11

I expected her to take her broken paci to bed and maybe cry about it some, or maybe try to put it in her mouth a few more times. I expected a lot more tears and a major meltdown. My sweet baby girl was so mature about her broken paci. It made me sad to see her so sad, but it was much better than the alternative that I was expecting.

The first thing she told me the next morning was that paci was broken. She told me that a few times before and after each bedtime and naptime for a few days but then, she mostly seemed to forget about it. Every now and then she will still tell me but it has been a week now with no paci!

From January 11

Chris and I decided that it was coming soon, and it would be much easier on all of us to do it before the baby gets here this Summer and has his own paci. By then she will hopefully have forgotten about her night time love affair with her paci and won't try to steal his. Just one more thing that confirms that my baby girl is growing up before my eyes faster than I could have ever prepare for.