Abby was (and truthfully, still is) a baby who LOVED her pacifiers. I'd read all the advice on not giving pacifiers or bottles until the nursing relationship was in full force so as to not cause confusion, but this little girl had different ideas. She loved to comfort suck so much that she went home from the hospital with a pacifier in her mouth and had zero confusion in figuring out how to feed vs comfort herself. Fast forward three years and I started getting comments on when we were going to force her to give up her pacifiers. Honestly, my thoughts were that I knew she wouldn't go to school with a pacifier so what did it matter if she gave it up at one, two, three, or four. I wasn't going to put a time limit on it.
But then we had our parent-teacher conference with Abby's preschool teacher. Abby has been doing great at preschool (her report card was just fantastic - we couldn't have been prouder) but her teacher did ask if Abby still used a pacifier occasionally as she had some trouble saying some sounds, particularly her L sound. Not enough that speech therapy was even a suggestion but enough that her teacher thought she was getting a "slippery tongue", which basically meant that her tongue wasn't moving far enough forward when it needed to. Which meant that her pacifiers were now starting to actually interfere with development - AKA her pacifier days were numbered.
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| Her last picture with a pacifier. This was also one of those "TAKE A PICTURE" moments as I know there won't be too many more moments where she falls asleep on me. She'd flat refused to take a nap but as soon as quiet time was done she just started crying and crying. After trying to cheer her up in various ways I asked what she wanted. "I want a hug, Mom!" So off to the rocking chair we went where we rocked and hugged and rocked some more. A little bit later I felt her body go slack and her breathing deepen. Sure, enough, little miss who didn't want to take a nap was taking one. |
Nate left on a week-long business trip right after this meeting and I knew that there was no way I would be able to successfully make it through the week while also working to give up pacifiers, so I said we'd work on it "after he got home". (I'm so thankful I didn't work on her giving up her pacifiers the week he was gone as she reverted back to infant sleep patterns and was up for at least an hour every night that he was gone - the first night he was gone I only got four hours of sleep and it didn't improve much by the end of the week.) On Saturday, when Nate came home, we were enjoying our family time when Nate's personality came out. :-) I say this lovingly but if you know Nate you know what I mean. He decided at 6pm that it'd be a perfect time for her to give up her pacifiers and go buy her a big girl present to commemorate the occasion. So after a little discussion on giving her pacifiers to another little girl and getting a big girl present we rounded up her pacifiers and then went to Toys 'R Us where we picked out a trampoline (a small one). Upon returning home she was all smiles and giggles as we bounced and played on the trampoline.
Then came time for bed. And the screaming and crying and pleading for pacifiers began. My Mom heart was simply broken as I listened to her sobs while sitting next to her as she tried to fall asleep for the first time ever without a pacifier in her mouth. Let's just say that I was thinking some not very nice things about the timing for giving up pacifiers and the person who pushed for that timing. :-) But the decision had been made and I knew that the situation would only be made worse if I gave in and gave her a pacifier. 30 minutes later she passed out from exhausted crying and I went to bed exhausted from a week of bad sleep and a sad heart. But the next day she only asked for the pacifier once and only cried for a few minutes before passing out at bed. The day after that she sweetly said that we should go find the little girl we gave her pacifiers to and ask for them back. And nighttime had a few minutes of asking for her pacifier but no crying. Yesterday she found a pacifier in her playbox and brought it to me to give to the little girl. :-) (Of course a little bit later she said we should make a trade and give the pink pacifier to the little girl and get the purple one back. Hee.) So I know we're moving along into not needing her pacifiers anymore territory. It's not perfectly giving them up yet, but we're getting there. It's particularly hard when she's tired and just wants to sit and suck but her wolfie (stuffed wolf) makes her happy most of the time.
So here we are. A few days into giving up our pacifiers. We've had lots of good moments and a few bad moments. But overall I do see the "no paci's" light at the end of the tunnel. Once again my little girl is getting to big!
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| I couldn't resist adding the Tiger Girl pictures. She'd played in her make-up and was so proud of how she looked. |
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| Having a stare-down. She watches a YouTube video where a cat plays with his mirror image. I think she was doing something similar here. |
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