We've been thinking we probably should take Joel's pacifier away before our next baby arrives, but there just hasn't seemed to be a good time. He's been down to having it just at nap times and bed time for a while now. Well, for the past couple weeks he's been waking up in the night (sometimes several times a night) crying because his binky has fallen out of the crib. Since we wanted to go back to sleep, we'd go in, find it, and give it back to him. This was starting to get a little old, and since we weren't getting a full night's sleep anyway, we decided to make the binky disappear. We implemented the "cold-turkey" method. It's been almost a week, and we're still not getting a full night's sleep. The first night he cried for an hour before going to sleep, and then he woke up at 3am crying for his binky. We went in several times during the next 3 HOURS, each time reminding him the binky was gone and trying to settle him down. He was so pitiful. I felt awful! He pleaded with me through his tears, "P'ease, Mommy, p'ease binky!" At 5:45am Greg got him out of his crib and rocked him until he fell asleep--not a fun night.
In the last week, there's only been one night where he's slept all night long. All the other nights we've had to deal with the crying for the binky. He seems to forget that it's gone. When we go in after listening to him cry for an extended period of time, he says, "Binky fall," and we have to explain again that no, it didn't fall and there's no more binky. We tried to replace it with other things--little pillows, a monkey, a teddy bear, Elmo--but none of them are quite enough, I guess. Crying it out doesn't work very well for him, never has. We're hoping it gets better soon and he adjusts to life without the binky. However, as one experienced mother told me today, "When you're a parent, there's always something!" So, we'll hope this one passes soon, and then we'll wait for the next little trial. :)
2 comments:
Hang in there. In Wendy's the other day the guy behind me, a 19ish looking guy, had a binky in his mouth. Yes, a real baby binky--just like Joel's. And he wasn't at all embarrassed. That's what happens if binky doesn't disappear at some point.
Your dad is funny. We're going to be giving up the binky habit for Abigail soon too. She's really only used it for bedtime and naps, and lately she just sort-of plays with it. So we'll see how it goes for us too! Good job for being consistent! I know how hard it can be!
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