I've been holding off on something for awhile now...say, about 6 months. The pacifier. The doctor said it needed to be done, and I was like "yeah...we can push it off just a little longer." And then it turned into a little longer....and a little longer. And then it turned into "Oh she only needs it for sleeping." "Oh, this once will only calm her down when we're at church." And last week when we were in St. Louis, we used it quite a bit to keep her quiet so as to not annoy our hotel neighbors or to keep her quiet in restaurants so as to not be "those people." Excuses after excuses.
T's been on the whole "let's get rid of this thing" since the doctor said she no longer needed it to comfort herself. That was at her 6 month appointment. In fact he was all for going it cold turkey. She had to stop using it at daycare in order to transition to toddler, and she's done fine with that. But at home? Not so much. And I'm afraid I've been her paci dealer. I've kind of let it go along too long. Bad, Mommy, bad.
But after one of those incidents on Sunday where she reenacted a scene from the exorcism as we got her ready for bed, and when she realized we weren't caving and giving her a pacifier? She flipped out. Like literally flipped out. I am not sure I've ever seen her get that angry. Home girl actually bit the nipple off of her bottle and used that as a pacifier. Milk everywhere. Everywhere, I tell you, everywhere! So we just took the bottle out of her hands, put her in bed and walked out. As soon as she calmed down, then she had her bottle, but as soon as she finished and figured out there was no paci forthcoming, all hell broke loose.
Sure, we could do the weaning thing, but I think we've tried that. It's not working. I mean the kid, the other day, saw one on the kitchen table, somehow reached it, took it off the table, looked me dead in the eye, smiled and stuck it in her mouth. She knows what she's doing.
So this week and the next might suck. In fact I'm pretty sure there are moments. But it has to be done. This is a paci free household. It has to be. This has to end now.
We're two nights in. Two long nights in. We've got a stubborn one on our hands, but what she doesn't realize? I'm stubborn, too. And only one of us can win.
Who knew such a power struggle could come from a piece of plastic?
I've herd that snipping the very tip off of them makes them less enticing, if they are all "broken" she may just give up on them on her own, worth a try :)
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! This makes me want to take it away from her now, when its still not that big a deal! Sounds like a nightmare! You poor thing!!
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, you are fighting a nuclear war. It's proper socialization and straight teeth vs quiet and sanity. And believe this too, there's no fast foreward switch on that child.
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