Binki Success

It's now been eight days and we've successfully gotten rid of the binki. Yeah for Emmaline! We didn't even give in once and give back to her. Yeah for us! Now I'm wishing we would've done it sooner than we did because it actually went a lot easier than I thought it would. While we did have some crying the first couple days it was only for a maximum of five minutes. I expected long nights of crying and Em waking up in the middle of the night looking for binki and crying. My little princess proved me wrong and became such a big girl right away without her binki. The only time she really thought about it was when she got in bed for nap or bedtime and she would point to her mouth. We quickly reminded her that she was a big girl and didn't need it, and I think she knew too that she didn't need it. I was a little worried that she might start sucking her thumb once the binki was gone since I've heard of that happening. So far so good though, no thumb sucking. While I did find her the first time she woke up from nap without binki with her fingers in her mouth, that was the extent of it. I think she was just trying to be silly more than actually thinking about sucking on her fingers or thumb.

After I took her binki away and made her go cold turkey, I actually felt a little bad. I know you might think, why would I feel bad for trying to break a two year old from a binki? Well, when you think about it, this is something she's had for two years. Not the same binki mind you, because that would definitely be gross! She's had quite a few different binkis. However, she's always known that binki goes to bed with her and binki is what she goes to for some "comfort" even when mommy and daddy try to comfort her. Come to think of it, it was probably pretty devastating to her to suddenly have it taken away. Imagine losing one of your favorite things. You wouldn't be too happy would you? She was just missing one of her favorite things. Some of the looks on her face when I would walk out of the room at night were like, "Uh something isn't right here" or "I know you're not going to leave me here without my binki." After a few days though, she started to not even mention it. If she did it was for a quick second and then we'd sing a song and rub her face and she was fine.

This weekend we even had to take binki away from her baby. She's got this one baby that had a binki connected to it. She said "Baby a big girl" and wanted her baby's binki cut off. So we did and she threw it in the trash like she did with her own binki. I guess she figures if she has to be a big girl with no binki, then her baby has to be a big girl without her binki too. All things considered, I'd have to say my little girl handled this transition quite well. I'm very proud of her for overcoming it so quickly. And for the first time, today she woke up from her late nap in a more than normal extremely happy mood! She didn't nap until 4pm today and about 7pm Greg went to wake her up because we wanted to make sure she would go to sleep tonight. Usually when we wake her from a nap she's a little cranky, but not tonight. When he brought her down, she was all smiles and a happy little camper. She walked over to me and said, "No mommy" while she pointed to her mouth. I said, "No, no more binki." She shook her head and said, "No binki, big girl!" I think she's accepted it, and is fine with no more binki. Way to go Emmaline! You are mommy's big girl! Love you!