Going Cold Turkey

It happened tonight. I officially put Chloe to bed without the binkie. I have been slowly weaning her from the binkie this summer. And have you noticed, summer is almost over. This might seem like the silliest thing to be proud of, but I was partially hooked on the binkie too. It was so easy to put it in her mouth and have a little silence.

So the story of how it all ended is heart breaking, at least to me. In June we had 4 binkies left and she was only getting to have it when she was in the rocking chair or in bed. The exception was when we were in Utah this June and she was napping in her car seat. Anyway, a few weeks ago she started bitting them until she had bitten through the silicone. First went her favorite, pink binkie. Then the blue one, and today white one bit the dust. (ha ha)

I went in to get her up from her nap to get ready for the birthday party we had this afternoon. She was so upset from waking up early (where does she get that from?) and stood in her crib crying. Once things calmed down a little she held up her binkie and said "what's on there, mommy?" I took a close look and found it had been bitten for the last time. I told her that she had bitten it. She looked at me with the most pathetic look and through her cries and tears she said "is it broken, mommy?" All I could say was "yes, it's broken" because I was realizing what this meant for not only her but me. This is when I about cried myself. Chloe looked at me and sobbed "binkie has to go bye-bye, mommy?" So I told her to give it hugs, then she let me give the binkie hugs. We said our good-byes and I thought, oh no how is bed time going to go tonight?

We went to the birthday party and had a great time. But then all of the sudden I looked at Chloe and she had her spare white binkie in her mouth. It was in the diaper bag and she found it on a chance diaper bag raid. This one is not broken and I have it only for emergencies when we are out, which I have only used once (yesterday).

So this has been the long version of giving up the binkie. But it is a monumental weekend at our house. Here's hoping tomorrow's nap time and bed time goes as well. I'm thinking that the birthday party completely wore her out and that is what made things so simple tonight. Keeping fingers crossed for tomorrow...

Update: Sunday nap was a little rough, but she made it. She slept for a couple of hours despite the crying for about 15 minutes. It is so hard to do this, but we think it would be really bad if she was still using it when she starts Kindergarten. Here's hoping we have success and don't give in to her wishes. Farewell loved binkie, have fun at Storyville (I'll explain that later), we love you!