Evan has taken a pacifier (he calls them Bubba's) since he was 2 days old. For the past year he has only taken one for naps and bedtime. I initially wanted to take it away from him when he was one. But one turned into 18 months, then two years and now he's almost 2-1/2. I didn't want it to start affecting his teeth so I bit the bullet and decided to go through with taking it away. I knew it was be really hard (not just for him) but since he has been napping at daycare for months without a paci I knew he could do it.
With a little advice from my friends I decided to tell Evan a story about the Pacifier Pirate. The pirate visits when kids are no longer babies and are now big boys. The pirate exchanges the big boys pacifier for new toys and the pacifiers go to little babies that need them.
Evan was very excited and eager to pack up his bubba's to wait for the pirate. His enthusiasm gave me hope that the transition would be an easy one. I was incorrect.
The day after I told Evan the story it was time to get ready for the pirates visit. He excitedly put his bubba's in the envelope for the pirate.
We took the envelope outside and then all we had to do was wait!
After a little time (and major distractions by mommy) we heard the doorbell ring. That was the sign he had been there. At this point Evan was soooo excited. He ran outside to find his envelope with the paci's gone and in it's place was a huge Little People car track and two more envelopes. Luckily the car track was a birthday gift I hadn't gotten out of the toy closet yet. I also got him, I mean the pirate got him a Buzz Lightyear and Rex toy from Toy Story which he is WAY into right now.
He played and played with his new toys and all the while I was dreading naptime. Although he seemed to understand what he was doing by sending the bubba's away with the pirate I knew he couldn't ful grasp it until naptime when I told them we didn't have them anymore. And sure enough as he was settling down for his nap he asked for them. I told him that he has new toys instead of the bubba's and I repeated the pirate story to him. Meltdown ensued. He wanted to see them and wanted them back. I just kept repeating to him that we no longer had them and what a big boy he was. Nothing I said mattered, all he knew was he had his paci's every day of his life and now they were gone. Eventually he feel asleep after about 45 minutes of crying. Poor guy, and it was awful to listen to. But I knew it was going to be a rough few days and it was in his best interest to do it now.
He woke up about an hour into his nap (unheard of! He usually naps at least 3 hours) and he was inconsolable. It took Todd about a half an hour to get him to calm down. And we needed to leave for the zoo for trick or treating in about an hour. We eventually convinced him to get in his costume and we all had a nice evening at the zoo (I'll blog about that later). But after the zoo we decided to get dinner and for the first time ever Evan was so bad we had to leave the restaurant as soon as we got our food. He was under the table throwing a tantrum and kicking and whining. It was pretty brutal. But we remained patient since we knew he'd been through a lot that day. Bedtime did not go smoothly either, we got home at about 10 and Evan was up until midnight, off and on he would beg for his pacifier. And I admit we were at the end of our rope with the day and we gave him a paci - only we cut the tip so it was "broke". He was not happy about that either and he launched it across the room. The next day he napped without issue, but bedtime he again cried and screamed for his bubba for about 45 minutes. Last night was night three and he cried for maybe 20 minutes and fell asleep.
Tonight we put him down and he talked in his crib for about 20 minutes before falling asleep and NO CRYING! He didn't ask for them or even mention them, yay! I'm hoping he has mostly forgotten all about them and we won't have any more sleep issues. Fingers crossed! It was by far one of the most challenging few days as a parent I have had to deal with.
