When Wesley turned 3 it was time for the pacifier (bink-bink) to go. We did it cold turkey with Xavier the same way.
About a month or two before he turned 3, we started talking about how 3 year olds didn't need bink-binks anymore. This time it was great because we even got Xavier in on our project to convince Wes to give up the bink! We talked about how when Wes turned 3 he would get to send his bink-binks to "the babies" who needed them, just like Xavier had done.
Walter and I were bracing ourselves as the day drew closer. We knew it was going to be hard. Wesley was waaayyy more attached to his bink bink than X (which we didn't think was possible....we were wrong!) and would have been content to have it in his mouth all day long. It was such a sense of comfort for him to have his "bink bink and deb-debs" (debs is his lovie). He wanted it in the car, around the house, and even got to the point where he would go get them to watch tv. He was a bink bink junkie!
Part of me thought, who cares, why take it from him?? But the other part was keenly aware that he was using the bink-bink as his only way to cope with life. If he didn't have it, he had no clue how to cope with a situation that wasn't 100% going his way. I started to feel like he really needed to develop some ways to work through his emotions. AND I was darn sick of looking for that thing all over the house when he couldn't find it and was freaking out!
We came across a cute video of Elmo saying goodbye to his binky. Xavier thought it was great, but Wes wasn't quite sure. I think reality was setting in :)
On his birthday, we did the farewell to the bink-bink and Wes didn't protest at all.
He took one last suck, and mommy took one last picture with it.
Then he put the bink bink in an envelope. I tried to get him to decorate it with stickers and markers, but he wasn't interested.
It was a little snowy morning and he headed out with his envelope to the mailbox.
In return for the bink-bink, "the babies" gave Wesley a green locomotive and a red milk tank car for his train set later that day.
So at first things didn't go well. And I really thought Wes was going to stop napping completely. He just could not settle down when it was time to sleep. He was just so hyper without the sucking. I thought that with the bink bink gone, he would turn to DebDebs even more for comfort. But, the complete opposite happened. All of the sudden he was done with DebDebs too. He totally shunned that thing. Left it in his bed all day, sometimes didn't even want it in the bed when he went to sleep. I was SHOCKED, and a little heartbroken for poor DebDebs that was getting the cold shoulder.
Almost a month after we bid goodbye to bink bink, I'm happy to say that Wesley is doing much better. He's napping again, although not every day, and he's fallen back in love with DebDebs after about a week hiatus. We still have a rougher time getting him to settle down at night, but he's in a stubborn phase too. For the first week, every time we put Wes to sleep he would say "Mommy, I need something...something small and green." (meaning his bink bink). I would gently remind him that we sent bink bink to the babies because he was 3 and didn't need them anymore. Now he doesn't even ask about it at all. Occasionally he'll say "when I was little like Elliott I used to have a binkbink." But that's about it.
I for one am glad that he took DebDebs back. He's just to cute and soft to give up! And apparently he makes a great sleeping hat :)
We are so proud of you Wes for giving up the bink-bink!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment