This morning, I innocently planned to replace my daughters summer back up clothes with winter back up clothes at daycare. When I got her bin down at daycare this morning, I saw it. The LAST emergency paci.
Three months ago, my daughter gave up her paci cold turkey. Looking back I really think I was more dependent upon it than her. My daughter loved her paci and it went everywhere with us. In 17 months, we had only lost one pacifier. I dreaded taking her pacifier away. I imagined days of screaming and weeks of not sleeping.
The first day was a little rough, with her whining for it from time to time, but we made it. It helped to have my husband there, because when one of us thought about giving in, we reminded each other how long we HAD made it, and stayed strong. I tried to distract her with gold fish crackers, sippy cups and her favorite toys and books and we made it through the day. Getting her to sleep that night was rough. She just would not stay in her toddler bed and kept crying. I let her fall asleep watching TV with me that night.
The second day was much easier. She asked and looked for her beloved paci a few times, but no whining and crying. Bedtime went much better as well. She cried for about 5 minutes, but she stayed in her bed and went to sleep all on her own.
From the third day on, she has not asked for it, not once! We used to keep one in her car seat and it took almost a month for her to stop looking for it each time we got in the car, but she never cried.
For the first couple of weeks, I kept an extra paci with the tip cut off (from our first attempt at breaking the habbit)in my purse. Other emergency paci's were in diaper bags and even one hidden in my car. Slowly all of these made it into a cabinet and then finally into a box to be stored. I had forgotten about the one at daycare. This morning as I left daycare, I put in my pocket so tonight I can place it in the box with the others to close a chapter of our lives. She is a big girl now, and mommy doesn't know how to feel.
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