The pacifier, the binky, the "mute button" (as I like to call it), or "nee-nee" (as Allie has started calling it)...has been our saviour. I swore I wasn't going to give Allie a pacifier because of the whole nipple confusion thing. Well...that lasted about 24 hours after her birth...along with the "no formula...I want my baby to only have breast milk." After Allie cried non-stop all night long her first night in the hospital...Todd and I gave in. She was STARVING! Give her SOMETHING...ANYTHING!
The pacifier became one of our essential baby items we made sure to NEVER leave the house without. Allie to this day, only likes the big, round, ugly hospital pacifiers...not those cute ones that you can now personalize with your child's name or bling out with cute rhinestones. We did buy a pink and purple one...but they are not nearly as cute. We had a binky at day care. We had one in the diaper bag. We put about five or six in the crib at night. We even had one attached to a monkey stuffed animal.
Monkey (aka: mu-chi) has become Allie's best friend. I bought monkey when Allie was about a month old and I was desperate for her to sleep through the night. I can recall very vividly those LONG, sleepless nights of Allie waking up every TEN minutes because the pacifier would fall out. I spent MANY nights hanging halfway in her bassinet holding the binky in so we could ALL get some shut eye. Monkey worked out pretty well. It helped hold the pacifier in front of her mouth as she slept. It also helped the binky to stay in the crib at night because we are one of those "no bumper in the crib" families...yes...our pediatrician scared us with the suffocation stories. In the morning every single pacifier would be on the ground and only monkey would be left in the crib with Allie.
Monkey eventually fell apart. So, we just clipped the pacifier onto his tail with a pacifier clip so it still wouldn't fall out of the crib.
Overall, I'm glad we used a pacifier because it helped Allie sleep through the night...which was great for Todd and I too! It quieted her down when we were out in public. It soothed her when she got all of her immunizations. Sometime along the way, we started to restrict the binky to only her crib. Personally, I didn't want her running around and talking with a pacifier hanging out of her mouth. She adapted easily to the change. I knew in the back of my mind that we would need to eventually break Allie of her binky habit.
Within the past month, Allie started asking for her nee-nee. OH, NO! Time to say bye, bye to binky. Todd and I have been preparing Allie to say bye to her binky by watching numerous Elmo videos about putting down the pacifier (she LOVES Elmo). We made a calendar to count down the days to when we'll say bye to our binky. We've told her how big girls don't have binkies...but they can have blankies and dollies.
A while back I stumbled across something on the Internet called the "Binky Tree." The binky tree grows in Northville and is the home to many binkies that boys and girls have left hanging on the branches when they were ready to say bye to their binky. Allie and I made a visit to the binky tree today. I showed her how BIG boys and girls hang up there binkies and say "bye, bye." I told her that when she does say bye to her binky, the Tooth Fairy will leave her a special present for being a brave, big girl. She agreed and nodded her head yes...she probably really doesn't know what she's in for.
July 21st is PUT DOWN THE PACIFIER DAY!!!
(for Allie)
