One day, (April 6th to be exact) I decided to leave Mason's binkies in his bed following his afternoon nap. We went about the rest of our day never seeing or discussing them. Since he had gone record time without as much as a mention I decided to put him to bed without them (I keep using the plural form as he ALWAYS had one in each hand, one in his mouth and a few strewn around the bed). He went right to sleep. "There is no way it could be that easy," I thought. I slept a bit restlessly as I fully expected him to wake at any time begging for his binkies. The next morning he woke up a little grumpy and nose running. Yep, he was sick. Had I forseen this little kink in the plan I would never had taken them away when I did but the first night was down and I was not about to go back. The second night was by far the saddest. Russell rocked and sang and rocked and sang and when he finally layed Mason down he just cried and cried. We listened to him for 10-15 minutes, which doesn't sound like a long time but is SUPER long when your baby is crying and begging for mom, dad and binkie. That was a tough one. He finally succumbed but spent most of the night in our bed.
The days were so long and the nights were even longer. He was coughing and snotting and SO grumpy. It was hard to know how much of it was sickness and how much of it was the loss of his best friend. I was feeling really bad for him but I had come too far to give up and start all over.
It took 5-6 days before he quit asking for his binkie. His phrase, "binkie, blanket, na-night" has been modified to "blanket, na-night". It has just been in the past few days that he is back to his happy little self. It even seems like he has grown up a little bit the past few weeks. His last little piece of real baby-ness is gone.
I feel bad that I didn't give him one last comforting sucking session before the binkies disappeared but I think we are both over it now. No more retracing our steps when we lose one in the store. No more searching the house to find at least 1 of the 10 that are supposed to be in his bed. No more talking around or carrying them through the house. We are binky free and that is such a great feeling!
Comments
And can I just say I misread the title of this post on my sidebar as "Bye-Bye Bikinis" and I was wondering when you'd taken up 2 piece swimwear and, if so, why you'd decided to give it up. :-)