The Sadly we have reached that age where A is old enough that the pacifier weaning is upon us. At 19 months she was very happy with her pacifier, her favorite being the fantastic Wubanub in the shape of a lion, dubbed Leo.
For those not in the know, Wubanub is a company that takes the Philips Avent Soothie Pacifier and attaches it to a stuffed animal. This is very helpful for babies as it prevents the pacifier from rolling away and helps the baby to keep it in their mouth. It’s also adorable! They come in all types of animal from real to fantastic and all are super cute.
A got hers from one of her awesome Aunts, one N’s sisters. She has loved it ever since and it is really sad to see her looking for it at bedtime now. The last time I worked on limiting her pacifier use she took to it fairly well. I thought that at a year it was time to limit her use of the pacifier to nap and bed time only. However, the pediatrician said that we should remove the pacifier cold turkey before A turns 2. So we decided to bite the bullet and do it now.
To be exact, we started on Thursday night. Our sweet little girl who has been such a great sleeper for all of her life so far, used to love bedtime and our little rituals. She gets a bath with daddy, when they sing special songs and she plays with her toys, then she gets her teeth brushed. After that it’s into the bedroom where we sing her two bedtime songs while putting her in pajamas. After that I read her a bedtime story (or 3) while we sit in the rocker, and then I lift her and tell her it is lay down time and she rests her head on my shoulder while I hold her for a few minutes before kissing her and putting her in her crib to sleep.
Since Thursday night, the ritual has been crazy. She refuses to leave the tub, starts to cry and scream as soon as we enter her room and won’t let me read her a bedtime story. Last night, she got all the way to lay down time before starting the screams started. So hopefully each night will be better. Her screaming time before she finally drops off also seems to have lessened. It’s been averaging 5-30 minutes but last night was only 5.
The other problem is that she has been waking up earlier. Without Leo to calm her back to sleep in the morning, she refuses to stay in her crib once she wakes. So she is up around 2 hours earlier now.
The three of us have all been tired and a bit crabby for the past few days. Hopefully each night will continue to improve and we will soon have our sweet bedtime rituals back in place and can get our much needed rest again. But it has been super not fun so far.