I mentioned last week about Emily giving up her pacifier and not napping. Well, this momma had enough and caved at about midnight last night.
Let me start by telling you a little bit about my Emily. She if VERY strong willed and is given over to a variety of moods. Ok, she's moody. And she is also a girl of extremes. She's not hungry, she's starving. She's not cold, she's freezing. But her fun side is super fun too. You get the picture. She came into the world screaming bloody murder and hasn't stopped since. I admit it...she gets it all honestly, but that makes it all worse. Her and I butt heads and wills and everything else on a daily basis.
She has been very attached to her paci from day one as well. The girls went to the dentist for the fist time several weeks ago, and they 'encouraged' me to get rid of her paci. They said that she has a pretty big overbite right now but it would probably correct itself if we got rid of the paci now.
So it took about a week, but I talked her into giving her paci to a baby. She was really excited about it. We made a big deal about how she was such a big girl. We wrapped them up and even drove to the baby's house to give them to him (oh, and get happy meals afterwards too). She did great that first night and didn't even ask about the paci. I thought, "This is a piece of cake!" Ha, remind me to never think that again....remember the potty training?
The problem is that she's not napped yet. And she and I both really need her to nap. Her lack of sleep is affecting everything about her (and me) in the last two weeks.
Ok, so back to last night. She went to bed normally at 8pm, but then woke up screaming at 10:30. SCREAMING! I couldn't talk to her or touch her cause it made the screaming louder. An hour and a half later of non-stop screaming combined with her kicking and flailing arms, I asked her "Do you miss your paci?" She said, "yes." That's the first word she had said to me since the whole episode began. I asked her if she wanted to go with me to get a new one, and the screaming stopped. I drove to Kroger, got a new paci, and she never made another sound.
Wow, that was a really long story to say that I totally caved and am a wuss. Wonder if they have any 12-step programs for paci dependancy? Oooooo, or even better.....anyone want to buy a two year old? I'll throw in the two brand new pacifiers for free! No returns!
7 comments:
Oh my. I fully expect the same kind of fight when we start working on Hannah's thumb-sucking. Although I haven't quite figured out how to manage that yet since we can't take her thumb away...
I have my own strong-willed toddler, so I'll have to pass on the 2-year-old. Good luck and I hope you can find a way to get rid of the paci for once and all! :)
I'll trade you two roommates and a kitten for your two-year old. Especially if the two paci's are included! At least the paci keeps her quiet for a little while. I haven't found anything to keep the roommates quiet! :o)
joby
Your second sounds like my second. Oh, and I did that look a like meter thing--I was completely shocked by the results. I am thinking I need to use better frontal pics to get more accurate readings!!
I caved once or twice with Emma when she was about 2. What finally worked was a busted lip. She was playing hard one day and fell busting her lip. Now a plug (as we call it) is hard to suck on when your lip hurts. It would take a couple of days to heal anyway. So we decided that this was the time to do it.
I told her we would put the plug outside on the door step and the "Plug Fairy" would come take the plug and leave Emma a special gift for giving up her plug. We put an excited Emma to bed that night and Daddy rushed off to the store to find a plug fairy gift. I found all the plugs in the house and threw then in the trash to "burn the ships" as it were.
When Emma got up the next morning, there was a piggy bank on the doorstep in place of the plug. We told her about how fun it would be to fill the piggy bank with money and how she could spend that money on anything she wanted. We talked about toys or carousel rides....anything she wanted.
Emma said, "OK, I will buy a pwug."
Well.... if it makes you feel any better, my dentist said thumb sucking/pacis are ok until 3 or 4. Both of mine are totally addicted to the thumb, so at least if she's 4 and still on the paci you can take your's away!
We just had Taylor (2) give up her paci and although she did pretty well without it, she now sleeps with us...we just replaced ourselves for the paci and are the comfort. Oh well, one battle down another 500 to go. Good luck!
I don't know if you're home all day with her or not, but if you are have you tried laying down with her for her nap?
I have a similar problem with my son (except that I breastfeed and he uses me as a pacifier -- and refuses real pacifiers)and I always find that he'll go right to sleep if I lay down and cuddle him a bit.
Then once he's asleep -- or almost there -- I can get up continue with the things I need to do while he naps.
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