Going Cold Turkey

Walter and I decided that when Xavier turned 3 we wanted to take his binker (pacifier) away completely. So 2 weeks prior to his birthday we talked about when you turn 3 you don't need binkers anymore. We told X we were going to send his binkers to babies that needed them. He was excited and very much on board with the idea. On the morning of his birthday, X and I packed up the binkers. First he decorated an envelope with stickers.

Then we collected the binkers from his room, he got one last suck with each one, and we put them in the envelope.

X was very excited to put the envelope in the mailbox to send to "the babies".

The next morning there was a "surprise" in the mailbox for X as a thank you from the babies. He was thrilled and enjoyed putting together his new race car puzzle.

I was dreading what nap time was going to look like that first day. It was a busy morning with playgroup and X was up early so he was past due for a nap when I finally got him in his room. He mentioned his binker and I reminded him that we sent them to the babies. Well, he clearly had an "Oh no - what the heck did I do??" moment and started crying. I put him in bed and talked about all the things that we were going to do later in the day after nap. The crying ensued for about 10 minutes. I resettled him and he stopped crying. But, since there was nothing to plug his pie hole he just started talking. And talking, and talking.  He would also just make weird noises and kind of scream out. He was like a person going through withdrawals. He had no idea what to do with his mouth without the binker. He got himself all wound up singing and making noises and an HOUR later he was still awake. I checked on him and reminded him that if he didn't take a nap he wasn't going to be able to do the fun stuff we had planned for later that day. Meanwhile I was aggravated because I really needed a nap and that clearly wasn't going to happen with motor mouth in there. And we were edging closer to the time that X usually gets UP from his nap. I didn't want to budge and let him skip the nap because of the principle, but now I was wondering what this would mean for him (and me) at bedtime. Finally at 1 hour and 10 minutes in he fell asleep.

A similar situation ensued that night where it took him quite awhile to fall asleep. And since he had nothing to self sooth with, he was up in the night, then up for good very early the next morning sleeping only 7 hours total. The past few days have been pretty much the same. He no longer cries for the binker but he just takes forever to settle down because he doesn't have that soothing mechanism and is sleeping for shorter durations. As of this post we are on Day 4 Post Binkers and I'm really hoping for some improvement by the end of the week. He did take a good nap today so maybe we are turning a small corner.

I know we've done the right thing and it's just gonna take a little time. It's gotta be hard for him because having the binker to sleep with is all he's ever known. When I look at it in those terms he really is doing good with all this.

Note to self though -- Take the binker away from Wesley waaaayyyy sooner than 3 years old. Sorry bud, not making this mistake twice!