Thursday, September 22, 2011

Pacis are for babies!

Well, it's night 4 without the paci and I feel like I can talk about it without jinxing us.

Simon has been a paci kid since he was born. We made it a crib- and car-only thing about a year ago, with exceptions for times he was sick or really upset for some reason. We knew we needed to get rid of it soon with the new baby coming and our pediatrician agreed.

His recommendation was to prep Simon for a week or so by talking about it, so we told Simon that pacis were for babies and since we was a big boy now, we would be giving his pacis to a baby down the street. At first he would say no and look a little worried, but over the course of a week, he seemed to start to get it. This past Sunday, we told him that we would be giving his pacis away the next day and he nodded in understanding.

Monday morning--I let him have his paci in the car on the way to daycare and when we got there I reminded him that this was it. I said, say bye bye to your pacis--he thought about it for a second, took the one out of his mouth, looked at it and threw it on the floor.

Matt picked him up and there were no pacis in the car on the way home. We were dreading bedtime, but figured we would have a few terrible nights and hoped that the inevitable sleep disruption wouldn't last too long.

So we got to bedtime, we got through PJs, and while we were reading a book, he asked for a paci. We said, what did tell you about pacis? He said "baby!" and that was that.

He did pop up a couple of times that first night and we had to remind him about the baby and the pacis, but he went to sleep fairly quickly. One more pop up at 10, which took a brief visit to put him back down and that was that!

The next morning, he woke up at 6. Ugh. When I went in to get him, he asked again about the pacis, and then seemed to remember and said "baby!" and then pointed to himself and said "big!"

Since then we have had a few moments like that, where we have to gently remind him why he doesn't have his pacis anymore, but no crying, no tantrums, no serious sleep disruption.

We kind of can't believe it's been this easy, so hopefully I won't be updating this post when the other shoe drops. But he has been such a sweet, mature little boy about this, and we are incredibly proud of him!

Here's a picture of him sleeping, without a paci!



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