"Bye-Bye Massie"

On Monday night, Erik was studying late, which meant that I had bed time all by myself. Usually when this happens, I lay Klaasen down on Maida's bed with her and they play while I put Skogen to sleep. A week ago, Skogen moved from the crib into a big boy bed, and since that happened, it takes a little bit longer (usually) to put him to bed because he keeps getting out of bed! Well, this particular night, he was pretty tired and I could tell that he would go down pretty fast. When I laid him down, with his bear and paci, he asked for apple juice. I usually say, "no," to drinks in bed, especially juice, but an idea quickly came to me at that time that maybe Skogen would exchange his paci for some apple juice. So, I went and got the apple juice, came back into his room, and said, "Skogen, do you want to be all done paci?" while I handed him the apple juice. He said, "Yeah," and handed me the paci. I wasn't sure if he really understood (even though I had been talking to him about being all done with the pacifier for several weeks, now), so I said, "Skogen, can you say bye-bye to your paci?" He put the cup down from drinking, looked at his paci, and said, "Bye-bye massie." That was it! He went to sleep without asking for it again.

All day Tuesday I was trying to think of what I was going to do and say that night if Skogen asked for his paci at bed time. So, I ended up cutting the end of the nipple off of one of the paci's and my plan was if Skogen asked for it, I was going to show him that it was broken and tell him that was why we had to say bye-bye to the paci. Well, while I was putting him to bed, he said, "Massie?" and I said, "You are all done with paci, now, remember? You said bye-bye to paci last night and now you are a big boy." He asked, "Massie come back?" and I said, "Nope, paci all gone." That was it! He has not asked for his paci ever since Tuesday night.

I did a quick clean up of all the paci's I could find around the house and I'm really hoping that I got them all so that I don't have to take one away from him again. However, he doesn't seem to be interested in Klaasen's paci's at all. I want to believe that we are truly all done with the paci's and that I don't have to go through all the trouble I hear other moms and dads having when they take away pacifiers. I really wanted this transition to be smooth and to do it at a time when Skogen could understand what was going on, not just take his paci away cold-turkey. I think I accomplished this by talking to Skogen about it for a long time before actually doing it (an approach our kids respond well to) and doing it at a time when things were going well for him (not when he was teething or dealing with other issues).

Now if I could only get Klaasen to take his paci, we'd be all set! He thinks that I'm his pacifier and is not falling into the typical "Babywise" eating/sleeping pattern, which has me puzzled! For the past week I've been feeding him about every hour... for feeding time and to go to sleep. I'm hoping that this will all change when he's awake for longer periods of time, or when he finally decides to suck on a pacifier, but we'll see!