Pacifier Be Gone!

This is the second night Peter went to bed without a pacifier! Hooray!

It all happened on Sunday afternoon, when Christine handed the pacifier to me and said: "Mom, it is broken. Do you still want to give it to him?"

I took a look, sure enough there's a crack on the side of the thing. He bit it, again.

So I said: "Ok, this is it. We are going to ween him from the pacifier. He's not going to like it."

He was going down for a nap at the moment but by not having the pacifier in his mouth irritated him so much that he was waling for a good 15 minutes (we set the timer to see how long it would take for him to stop crying).

I gave in and let him have the pacifier (he went straight down as soon as the pacifier got into his mouth!). BUT, I showed him the crack on it before I gave it to him.

Last night, I wanted to try it again. I bathed him, brushed his teeth and read him his night time story books. He was very calm and happy. He started looking for the "plug" when I placed him into his crib. I quickly flashed the pacifier at his face and said: "Awww.... It's broken. Yuck-yuck. We have to throw it to the trash can." I left it on the stair rail outside of his room. You know, out of sight out of mind and kept my fingers crossed.

Now, he understands what yuck-yuck and trash can mean (he helps me with throwing the wet diapers away), but the word "broken" was new to him. None the less. He gave me a look and then lay down on his crib. I was so excited that he didn't fight for it... then he got up and started looking around again. I immediately said to him; "Oh, you want Mommy sing you some songs?"

To that he had a big smile and I wrapped him up with his blanket and sang him a couple of his favorite songs and also made up some tunes with his name in them. He seemed to love it and fell asleep in my arm. I then put him back into his crib. He was fine and slept through the night (12 hours).

I was so happy. This afternoon when nap time came, I did the same things except the singing. He didn't like it and was not going to take that nap. So I picked him up and started singing to him. Yep! That singing worked! He went down without protest.

This evening, I didn't give him a bath (I only bathe him every other night in cold nights unless he got really dirty by playing in the park). I sponge bathed him and brushed his teeth, read the books and sang the songs and IT WORKED again! He went down without a fight and without the PACIFIER!

Praise the Lord!

(photographed by Christine)

Sweet dreams, my baby!