Whenever she would get a paci out of her room I would make a big deal out of it, telling her the paci was only for bed time, that she was a big girl now that she was 2 and didn't need a paci. I think the fact that I made it a big deal helped and hindered at the same time. She would run to her room all of the time, get a paci, put it in her mouth then run and find me just to show me she had a paci outside her crib. She even learned to say, "couch?" When she wanted it outside the crib.
Anyway, I started to notice that although she was running to her room and finding paci's on the floor she wasn't always putting them in her mouth, rather throwing them or hiding them places. I would find them everywhere... Or she would lol.
So last night, 5/19/2016 we got home after celebrating my birthday with my parents and my husband was putting her to bed like he always does. (Clare has recently started requesting to be rocked for a little while before we put her down in her crib. I don't see the harm so we have been.) So after reading a book with her my husband turned out the light and sat down with her in the rocking chair. I heard from the bathroom Clare say, "I want mommy to sing me sunshine." (I don't think my husband was singing it the way I do lol) I ran in there as soon as I finished washing my hands and gladly took her from my husband. She loves her daddy so much she never wants me to put her to bed, so I jumped at the opportunity!
I sat down with her, snuggled her in and started singing You Are My Sunshine to her. (Rewind 12 hours: throughout the day I had been finding her paci's with huge holes and breaks in them and had thrown out all but one.) While I was singing to her she was chewing on a paci and I could hear there was clearly something wrong with it. I asked her for it and she gave it to me. Yup, another hole! I'm that moment I knew I couldn't give it back to her and I was freaking out because I knew I didn't have any left... So I made the decision that this was it... Paci's were done! I didn't care how he'd it was going to be, she was done. I had been dreading this moment for months and months! I knew she shouldn't still have it since she had a full mouth of teeth and god knows braces are expensive!
After I sang to her a couple of times I got up, gave her a huge hug and kiss and put her down. I gave her pascal (her stuffed animal) and said goodnight. I walked out of the room and heard her whimper for a second about her paci but then she was out. I couldn't believe it.
She slept until 5am before she woke up. I thought that the fact she couldn't find a paci was the reason she woke up, but when I walked in to her room I noticed it was because her sound machine had turned off. (Stupid munchkin thing, this is the 4th one we've put in her room and this one was only 4m old! But she doesn't like any other one. thank god Lucy doesn't have an opinion yet so I switched the sound machine in her room out with another one we had). Clare requested a bottle and didn't even finish it before she was passed back out until almost 9am this morning! I was shocked.
She is now currently napping for the first time without a paci and this mommy is the happiest person on the planet!!
