Monday, March 2, 2009

bye bye binky

both my girls were pacifier kids. with pooka, we had to have 5 or 6 stashed around the house for the chronic misplacement of it.

bug is not quite as attached, but it is a definite cue of naptime/bedtime for her. at daycare, they stopped offering it, oh 6 months ago or so. at home, we were still employing it. occasionally i would tell her, "when you turn 2, the binky is gonna go bye-bye, ok?" and she would agree. i thought i was doing a good job preparing her in advance.

until last weekend, when i actually set us back a little. she wasn't feeling well and i let her carry the bink around the house pretty much all weekend. during the week i realized my mistake and decided to correct it. permanently.

thursday night, the bink got 'lost'. when i put bug to bed, i told her i would bring it in when i found it. she was fine with that, but golly gee i never did find that thing. friday night when she asked about it, i just redirected her. that worked fine until 5 am saturday when she woke up too early. usually the reinsertion of the bink puts her right back to sleep. this time it took a little backrub. when she woke up much later, i saw that my timing for her binky-intervention was not the greatest: she had a fever and was feeling lousy. of all the days to not have that self-soothing tool. i wasn't sure how naptime would go, but ultimately it was fine.

sunday afternoon she saw the binky on the kitchen counter. "dere i' is!" she declared.

oops.

once again a little redirection avoided any further attention and as soon as she was out of the room i buried that sucker(!) in the trashcan. with 4 nights and 2 naps under our belts, we are officially done with the binky.

now i'm thinking: perfect timing or too soon? we have this little trip coming up. long flight, strange bedroom. recipe for cranky toddler or one less thing to pack/lose/replace?

let's pray it's the latter.