No More Binkie

I am thrilled to report that we are officially a binkie-free family.

When Ian was 1, we had to take the binkie away from him because it was actually disrupting his night time sleep.  He would wake up, need it, not be able to find it and commence a screaming fest.  So bye bye binkie at 1 year.

Sammy didn't have that same issue.  She used the binkie to take naps and to go to bed at night, but once she was asleep, she wasn't bothered if she woke and didn't have the binkie.  So we weren't in any rush to take it away from her because it was so soothing for her.  But she is getting older and I was starting to have visions of a 6 year old girl still attached to her binkie.  So I promised myself that I would take away the binkie when she turned 3 in April.

But at school this week, Sammy transitioned from the Twos room to the Preschool room.  And the new teacher didn't know that she slept with a binkie.  And she got her to sleep (with some fussing and crying) without the binkie.  When I picked her up that night and the teacher told me, I knew it was my chance.  So we took the binkie away for Sammy's night time sleep too.  I told Sammy that there were too many babies in the world and not enough binkies and because she was a big girl, she didn't need the binkies anymore and we had to send her binkies to the needy babies.  She didn't buy my story and cried.  But we stuck to our guns.

So the first night, it took her 17 minutes to get to sleep with constant crying during that time.  She also woke 2x in the middle of the night crying.  The second night, it took her 20 minutes to get to sleep, but she wasn't crying constantly.  She would be quiet for many minutes and then call out for me.  So I soothed her but told her it was bedtime.  And she fell asleep and slept through the night.  And then the third night, she called out for me once and was done and slept through the night.

It really is amazing how adaptable children are.  Sammy has been using a binkie for 2 years and 8 months.  And in 3 days, she broke the habit.  I'm so happy it wasn't worse than that.  My heart broke a little bit on that first day when she was crying for it.  But I'm so proud of her and more importantly, she's really proud of herself because after all, big girls don't need binkies.

8 Nights of Celebration

Happy Hanukkah!  We lit the candles for every single night and ended up giving the kids a total of 16 presents.  They loved all of it.  My favorite part?  Eating latkes with cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving!  It was Thanksgivika!

In the picture below, Sammy is posing in the "new" hat we found in the closet (which was made by Nana last year) with the big wooden dreidel.