Three nights and counting!

We are on our way to becoming pacifier-free!! (touch wood!)

I'm a bit embarassed to admit that we still had a pre-schooler in the house with a soother. Aili has advanced early through so many milestones, such as talking in full sentences, toilet training and comprehending and executing simple commands, that it was hard to understand why she insisted on holding onto this last stage of babyhood. I should have weaned her off of it earlier, especially with all of her breathing troubles. However, truth be told, I just didn't have the heart to listen to her cry for nights on end!

Connor, on the other hand, took to toilet training like a duck to dirt, but relinquished his pacifier at an early age. It helped that he happened to bite the end of it off one night as I was leaving his room! I told him it was broken now and had to be thrown out. That was it - I didn't hear another peep about it, except the next morning when he saw it in the trash can in his room. He pulled it out, saw it was "broken" and promptly threw it away again!

Luckily, while we were away this weekend at my cousins' place, Daniela mentioned to me how she weaned one of the girls off of her soother by telling her they had forgotten it at a relative's house, after a visit.

When we got back late on Sunday night, I remembered our conversation as I was preparing to put Aili to bed. When she asked me for her soother, I went through the motions of looking for it through all of our bags. I asked her if she remembered to pack it with her toys. I looked high and lo ("and the Oscar goes to..." ;)) and finally told her that I thought we may have lost it or even left it "at our friends'". She went to bed fine, with no crying, although it did take her much longer to fall asleep. She also mentioned several times that we had to "go to our friends' house and get it".

We repeated the whole sequence at naptime on Monday and at bedtime last night and tonight. The ironic thing is that she has been sleeping without a soother for at least a year at daycare!! There have been no tantrums or tearful nights and she is becoming accustomed to falling asleep without it - although she still tries to use every trick in the book to avoid bedtime!!

You know what I mean...
"I have to pee."
"I want my Daddy"
"I want Mommy"
"I want to cuddle Mommy/Daddy/Connor"
"I want to read a story"
"I need some water"
"I want {insert closest toy on floor here} in my bed"
"Fix my blanket please"

and so on and so forth.... But we are sootherless!!

Now, to get rid of "Blankie"...