No more binkies!

It's no secret, Ruby was a binky kid. It started when she HATED the car seat. Driving around with a screaming baby is not good for anyone so I tried a binky. It worked. Thank goodness. Everything after that is a blur but her binky quickly migrated to her bed and only her bed. Ruby has always been a great sleeper and I credit the binky for that. I knew we'd have to get rid of it eventually but our pediatrician and the speech therapist at my school (a friend) said not to worry about it if it was limited to sleeping. Even then, we decided that we would start operation “no more binkies” when Ruby turned three.

We talked about it for months. She was excited. She wanted a binky bear. And she loved the idea of giving her binkies to babies. As her birthday approached, we decided to wait a few days because we had company. The last thing we needed was a non napping, non sleeping, grumpy kid. Once we got through the birthday celebrations and sent our visitors back home, we were ready.

Build a Bear was great. The GVZs joined us so Ruby was in heaven. The woman knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned the binky. She helped them stuff their bears, put hearts inside and sew them up. The girls took no time picking out clothes for their bears - Rapunzel for Ruby and Sleeping Beauty for Norah. They wrapped things up getting birth certificates and posing for some photos outside the store. At this point, I was feeling pretty good about our plan. Silly me.

At bedtime that night, Ruby was fine. That is, until the moment she had to get in bed and it was game over. She cried like we've never seen her cry before. She kept saying, "But I wuv my binky so, so much." She said she wanted to rip a hole in the bear so she could get her binky out. We've gone cold turkey with everything and Ruby was fine (lucky us). This time she was genuinely heartbroken. For the first time ever, I lost it and was sobbing right along with her. I knew there was no going back but I had to figure out how to get her to sleep. I remembered the sticker chart we used for potty training. Since she wasn't calming down, I told her about it and asked if she wanted a big dinosaur like Norah’s. It was like hiccups! The moment she stopped thinking about it, she stopped crying. I read her one more book and she let me leave the room. She talked to herself for awhile and was finally asleep close to 11. She slept the through the night and woke up with a dinosaur sticker chart (thanks Google) waiting for her.

She went in for her nap the next day without tears. It took her a while to fall asleep but she didn’t cry. It was a step in the right direction. Her 3 year appt was the following day so the doctor got to meet Rapunzel and made a big deal of it. Good timing! Oh, and she was really into getting a dinosaur so there were a few more sad moments but nothing like that first night. A small price to pay for a binky free, tear free kid.

Man, being a parent is hard. How am I going to get through school, sports, boo boos, boys? Makes me have a new appreciation for my mom and dad =)