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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Bye bye "night-night"


A couple weeks ago, Molli woke up uncharacteristically early and I wasn’t digging it.  So I got her out of her crib, used the dark grey skies to my advantage and told her it’s kind of still night time and brought her to bed with me.  I knew she wouldn’t sleep in there, but I figured if I could exist horizontally for 30 more minutes, I might be a better person.  She brought her favorite snuggly toy giraffe and her beloved pacifier, which she has a serious addiction to. (I realize it should have been a thing of the past long ago, don’t judge). It’s an unusual thing for her “night -night” to be out of the crib as, as her nick-name for it indicates, it’s only for bed times.

She’s been working on her two year molars for many months now and she still tends to gnaw on things way in the back of her mouth.  Well, her poor pacifier fell victim to this gnawing one too many times and she chewed a hole right through it.  I thought this might be my perfect opportunity to trash the thing and let her be in charge of it.  I talked up the hole and how it’s almost garbage.  Since that morning, every few days I’ve been chopping away at the hole, making it bigger and decreasing the ability to suck on it.  I don’t know why, but she still loves it. It’s actually quite hysterical the way it looks now, it’s a wreck. 

I’ve pointed out the hole since it started and always remind her that SHE chewed it so it’s not me ruining it (as far as she knows).  We talk about how it’s “almost garbage” and she will verbally acknowledge this on a regular basis, although it makes her angry if she’s told that it’s garbage now. Sometime recently she decided that it is me ruining it and she’s pretty quick to say that I’ve been cutting it.  I don’t have any idea how she knows this because I’m very sneaky, but I guess I better get used to being the bad guy… I am MOM, after all. 

She spent the night with Grammy and Papa on Friday night and of course, I packed her “night night” in her little purple back pack, but the back pack accidentally was left in Grammy and Papa’s garage.  Uh-oh.  We had to do nap time with no pacifier.  There were tears, there was a bit of a fight, but ultimately, she understood that it’s not here and she had to go without it.  Eventually I gave her Gavin’s cow stuffed animal and told her that Gavin heard that she was so sad and he wanted her to snuggle with his cow and be happy for her nap.  She accepted the cow, brought him under her blanket and tucked back into bed with tear filled eyes.  I turned on some Jack Johnson very quietly and left the room.  She slept.  I’m not going to lie, I’m a little surprised she napped at all, much less, well! 

So tonight we put her to bed and reminded her that her pacifier is in her back pack at Grammy and Papa’s house and she’s going to have to sleep without it.  I expected more tears and a fight, but she went to bed amazingly and we haven’t heard a peep out of her since then.  I’m thrilled! This might be just what we needed to break her addiction.

The girl doesn’t forget a thing (seriously, it’s amazing) so we need to be pretty consistent with what happens next.  She knows where it is but I’m thinking that if we make it something for Grammy’s house only and make more drastic chops at the hole, it will be garbage soon.  

Kids should come with some sort of book outlining perfect solutions to all of these random parenting things.  And not just general solutions but ones that work for my baby specifically.  With Molli, we seem to have been outside of the "norm" in many areas. I've had to wonder if the people who wrote the books were given some special species of children, or what.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is: I should be grateful that Gavin refuses the pacifier so we wont have to deal with this down the road.  

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