Bye Bye Paci

We have allowed Ridley to keep her paci months longer than necessary.  It seemed like there was always an excuse why we did not need to take it away.  We finally decided to stop procrastinating.  We tied it to a balloon and let her let go of it.  We told her she was sending it to the tooth fairy.  We all watched it float away, and there were no tears.  Cross your fingers for tonight.

Update:

Ridley did great without the paci last night.  She fussed a bit, but she slept through the night.

No more paci

Well, it happened today. In all our craziness this morning, I somehow left the house without Reed's pacifier. I didn't realize it was missing until I dropped him off at school. Ooops! I talked to his teacher, and we decided to see how it goes. I waited for a call, but it never came.

Since he did well without it at school, I decided today was the day it would go away for good. We went to the gym and spent the evening without the paci, so we were ready to try bedtime. After dinner and a bath, we put Reed down for bed. He knew immediately that he didn't have it, and he started to cry.

It broke my heart to hear him cry it out, but I kept telling myself it was for his own good. I also reminded myself that our pediatrician says that pacifiers are fine until one year old. I thought back to when we took Ryland's paci away, and how silly we felt for putting up with the paci drama for so long.

Reed fought it for a while and let us know that he was upset, but then he laid down and got quiet. He was asleep after 28 minutes of crying. I just hope he sleeps tonight!

Still no paci

This is the second day Ryland is without a pacifier. After crying last night for 25 minutes, he slept the whole night. John Chris and I woke up this morning and immediately asked each other, "Did you hear him wake up or cry?" Neither of us heard a peep out of him all night. He slept a full night without a paci.

This might come as a surprise, but for months John Chris and I would make 1 to 4 trips per night to give the paci back to Ryland. At first he was young and it would fall out of his mouth. As he got a little older it would come out of his mouth while he slept, and he would wake up and not be able to find it. He would scream, and we would run in his room to find it for him. More recently he would wake up during the night and throw the paci out of the crib and scream until we came in, found it, and gave it back. Yes, this has been going on forever. That is why we were so shocked that he slept a whole night without waking up and crying for it. We were expecting the worse.

We put him down for his morning nap, and of course he started crying. He cried for 7 minutes and drifted off to sleep. John Chris and I thought it was a fluke. We were still waiting for the "hell" to start.

We went over to our friends' house for game night, and we were dreading what could happen. John Chris and I agreed that if he threw a huge fit, we would leave. We thought he might need his own bed and surroundings. We were absolutely wrong. We put him down in the new pack n play upstairs in the guest room, and he did not cry. Not even a whimper.

What? We having been playing this paci game for months. We expected the absolute worst weekend, and Ryland has been a trooper. We can not believe we haven't taken the paci sooner. We feel so stupid!

No more paci

The moment we have been dreading arrived today. John Chris and I have talked about when we would take Ryland's paci away, and we both decided on the first Friday he was feeling well. I did some research online and found 2 options. Option 1 cold turkey. No games here. All of the pacis would just disappear one day. The article on Babycenter said it would be 3 days of pure hell. Option 2 sabotage. Cut the tip off the paci and trim just a little off every day. Eventually the child would think it was broken, and they would be over it.
We decided on option 1. We chose a Friday so the "hell" would be over the weekend and would not interfere with the important work sleep during the week.
We put Ryland down tonight without his paci, and the crying immediately started. I listened for 5 minutes and then went in his room to check on him. He was throwing a huge fit. I tried picking him up to calm him down. Nope. Ryland would not have it. I put him back in his crib, and I ran to the computer. I started googling "paci weaning". I hear my baby screaming and it is killing me. I literally feel physical pain.
Twenty minutes later he stops crying. I go in to check on him, and he is out. He cried a total of 25 minutes, and it nearly killed me. I can't imagine doing this in the middle of the night when he wakes up. Cross your fingers!