Binkie Free At Last, Free At Last!

Since the day we brought Little A home from the hospital, she's been a binkie girl. For the first year of her life she used it ALL the time, and we were okay with that. We had binkies all over the house, Grandma had a few at her house and we had one in the car. We were never without a binkie.

Then Little A got older... And she started talking... And she started walking... And we decided that she didn't NEED the binkie all the time so we limited it to naps and night time. All of the binkies were kept in one place so that there wasn't easy access to them, and she did fine with that.

When Little A turned two, I started worrying just a tad. I wondered how long we should let her keep the binkie and what it would do to her teeth and how we would ever break her of the binkie habit. The pediatrician didn't have an opinion about it, the dentist said that he'd rather see her have a binkie than suck her thumb, and we didn't feel that it was quite time for her to quit cold turkey so we stuck with the naps and night time routine.

At 2 1/2 we decided that maybe it was time to start thinking about getting rid of the binkies but felt that we should give Little A fair warning that it was going to happen and build it up as a big, exciting event. A friend suggested the 'Binkie Fairy' idea in which Little A would put all of the binkies in a bag and put it outside for the Binkie Fairy who would take the binkies and give them to the crying babies in, leaving Little A a treat in return.

Over the summer we started telling Little A that in January, when she turned three, we'd give the binkies to the Binkie Fairy and she'd get a surprise. She was VERY excited and decided that she wanted the Binkie Fairy to leave her bubble gum. She shared her news with EVERYONE who would listen and always with such enthusiasm (I kept thinking, "Poor kid! She doesn't know what's about to hit her!")!

Recently every time Big A asks for bubble gum, Little A asks for it as well. We kept telling her that she could have it when she turns three and she'd say okay... Then we decided to tell her that if she gave us her binkies she could have bubble gum right then. She'd say she was going to but when we'd tell her to go get them, she'd change her mind.

Last Monday though, she said okay. I was SHOCKED! I told her that she could try it... I told her she could put all of her binkies in our room that night and try sleeping without them. I told her that if she succeeded, she could have bubble gum. She did it!** So Tuesday I told her that if she gave her binkies to the Binkie Fairy she'd get a treat. She did it!

She got her binkies and put them in the bag (with a SMILE nonetheless!)...

She put the bag outside...

She went to sleep (without complaint!) and while she was sleeping, the Binkie Fairy (complete with FAIRY DUST thanks to a suggestion from a good friend) replaced the binkies with a surprise...

The next morning she got up, ran downstairs...

And found her surprise!

She was SO excited! She called me at work and told me all about the Binkie Fairy and the "pink and purple sparkles" and the surprises and the bubble gum and all the while she was talking so fast and so excitedly that I could hardly understand her!

As of today Little A has had four binkie free days and for the last two days she hasn't even mentioned the binkie! This was SOOO much easier than I'd anticipated!

WAY TO GO, LITTLE A!! YOU ROCK!!

** As a cute aside, on Monday night, the first binkie free night, she took longer than usual to go to sleep... She used every stall tactic in the book. She went to the bathroom, told me she's afraid of monsters and dinosaurs, asked for water, asked for the light to be on, attempted to start conversations with me, and even resorted to, "MOMMY! AM I CUTE???" How can a Mommy resist THAT question???