Bye Bye Binky.

Although we didn't plan to let Violet keep her paci until she was old enough to tie her shoes, we also hadn't planned to wean her from it entirely until she was a little closer to two. She's still going through a lot of teething and it helped to soothe her to sleep, which I was totally okay with. Our biggest issue was that our once ample supply of paci's had been slowly whittled down to one. The lone survivor, we treated that thing like gold. It didn't leave her nursery unless we were going on a long trip  and we thought we were doing pretty great. But while we were busy patting ourselves on the back for going so long without losing the thing, we didn't know that a small crack was slowly forming at the core of our daughter's most prized possession. That's right - the binky broke. 

Oh the horror!

You may be thinking to yourself, So why the heck don't you just buy a new one? Why all the drama? Well I blame that on Dr. Weil. We discovered his line of paci's long ago via Melissa and I was sold - it was a single piece of molded silicone, was BPA free, and was large enough for Violet to keep the darn thing in her mouth. At one point I think we owned four or five of them. Each one slowly succumbed to the will of our toddler. She'd chuck them out of her stroller on walks into piles of leaves, leave them laying at restaurants, and once I even dug one out from under a box of pie at the bakery.

When we were down to two paci's, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and order another pack (yeah, I'm cheap). And that's when it happened...the dreaded words, "Out of Stock". I couldn't find them anywhere - Amazon, Kmart, Dr. Weil's own website - I couldn't purchase them an-y-where. I called the Weilbaby company, I sent them impassioned emails pleaing for pacifiers. I would have seriously purchased a whole case at one point if they had offered it to me. But they wouldn't return my calls or emails. Even the subject line, "Desperate Mom, please help!" apparently didn't capture their attention. Let me tell you - that Dr. Weil is cold as ice. I mean, you should've read this email people. It would've even melted the Grinch's heart. Anyway, I digress...

Shortly after that Violet lost one of the remaining two and we were down to the. last. one. That is until about a week and a half ago when Violet bit it in half it finally bit the dust.

Yes, the binky was broken and I was completely terrified when bed time came. I decided to just go through our usual routine and pretend like everything was hunky dory. Sippy cup, brush teeth (with toothpaste mind you! Aquafresh Apple Banana to be exact. But that's another post for another day), read a few books, sing a few songs, and put her in bed with her blankey and her frog.

And guess what people? She DIDN'T EVEN CRY. Not once. Just a few 'Mommy's' and she was off to dream land. Who knew??!! I mean I won't say we haven't had a few melt down's since then at nap time or bed time, but mostly it's been pretty miraculously quiet and drama-free around the H-Haus. (well at nap and bedtime at least. There are definitely day time tantrums. I mean TANTRUMS! Why do there have to be tantrums??? But again...another story...nothing to do with paci's or sleep. Just my strong-willed stubborn child giving her opinion on, "but yes mommy you SHOULD let me play in the freezer. I mean, don't you know there are PEAS in there?!")

One bad habit that she's developed since the demise of the paci is sucking her fingers or sometimes even (the horror!) her thumb, so I think a few more months may have done her some good, but over all it hasn't been the Armageddon that I had imagined. I will say that I will NEVER purchase anything made by Weilbaby again and will be sure with my next child to use well-established easily accessible pacifier brands like Nuk that will NEVER go out of stock.


I'll file that one away under 'the lessons of motherhood' Does this stuff get easier with the second one? Please tell me that it does! This flying blind stuff is the pits.

Has anyone else had any experience with pacifier weaning? How old was your little one? How did it go for you? I'd love to hear about it!
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