Xavier was very attached to his pacifiers, especially a white one he had. Although we knew that – him being almost two and a half years old – we should be encouraging him to cease using them, we were not eager to start a war with our little boy over his favourite material source of comfort (and a bedtime « must have »).
One evening, we threw the story of the Soother Fairy out there, just for kicks. Xavier thought the idea was fun and, one by one, he started to stash his pacifiers under his pillow each evening. I felt like a robber, trading off his much valued nighttime solace for 1.14$ Hot Wheels.
Then there was only one left. Xavier decided his toy car collection was large enough for now; he preferred to keep the soother.
A week after that (over a week ago), he woke up in the middle of the night to stomach flu. Back up came his evening milk, his dinner, his lunch… and what else would lead the charge but the plastic object held between his lips?
By the time I had him bathed and lying down on the couch, his bedding in the washer, the floor hastily mopped up, and the now grotesque pacifier cast out with the garbage (I was NOT trying to salvage that thing; I had already decided to reuse one of his old ones which were hidden in a cupboard, if need be)… by that time, my boy had already nodded off on his own, his stuffed dog by his cheek.
When he and I installed clean sheets on his bed the following day before his nap, I did not add the pacifier, and he forgot to ask for it. He did start to formulate such a request occasionally when going to bed in the subsequent days, but a quick change of subject distracted him easily.
A little glitch: with no easy way to going back to sleep in the last days, he sometimes cries loudly for a couple of minutes, and wakes up his light-sleeper of a sister. Drat!
It is still a victory, and we are proud of our growing boy.
Now onto potty training. (I don’t suppose stomach flu will take care of this one.)
Xavier était très attaché à ses suces, particulièrement à une blanche qu’il avait. Même si nous savious que – à presque deux ans et demi – nous devrions l’encourager à cesser de les utiliser, nous n’avious pas hâte de commencer une guerre avec notre petit garçon à propos de sa source de réconfort matériel favorite (et un item nécessaire pour le dodo).
Un soir, nous avons lancé l’histoire de la Fée des Suces, à tout hasard. Xavier a bien aimé l’idée et, une à une, il s’est mis à pousser ses suces sous son oreiller à chaque soir. J’avais l’impression d’être une charlatante, à échanger ses réconforts nocturnes de grande valeur contre des Hot Wheels à 1.14$.
Puis, il n’en restât qu’une. Xavier jugea alors sa collection de petites voitures assez garnie pour l’instant; il a préféré garder la suce.
Une semaine plus tard (il y a plus d’une semaine), il s’est réveillé au milieu de la nuit avec la gastroentérite. Vers le haut sont revenus son lait du soir, son souper, son dîner… et quoi d’autre menait cette charge que l’objet de plastique qui se tenait entre ses lèvres?
Quand j’ai eu terminé de lui donner un bain et le faire coucher sur le divan, ses draps dans la laveuse, le plancher rapidement nettoyé, et la suce maintenant grotesque débarassée avec les déchets (je n’allais PAS tenter de récupérer cette chose; j’avais déjà décidé de ressortir une de ses anciennes suces qui étaient cachées dans l’armoire, au besoin)… quand tout fût terminé, mon petit homme avait déjà fermé les yeux par lui-même, sa joue contre son toutou.
Quand lui et moi avons installé les couvertures propres sur son lit avant la sieste le jour suivant, je n’ai pas ajouté de suce, et il a oublié de me la demander. Il a commencé à en formuler la requête occasionnellement dans les journées suivantes au moment du dodo, mais un changement de sujet rapide l’a distrait facilement.
Un bémol : sans moyen facile de se rendormir les derniers jours, il lui arrive parfois de pleurer très fort quelques minutes, et il réveille sa soeur au sommeil léger. Zut!
C’est tout de même une victoire, et nous sommes fiers de notre garçon qui grandit.
Et maintenant, on s’attaque au petit pot. (Je n’imagine pas que la gastro se chargera de cela aussi.)
Good luck! We waited until about Ben’s 3rd birthday before really getting serious about it but getting him used to the steps of it is a good foundation. Sara already likes to sit on the toilet (fully clothed) and « make pipi ».
Dear god the second one is soooo much easier. Tavish trained himself pretty much by the time he was 2. Having that older sibling to look up to makes SUCH a big difference. (Talking potty here, not the binky.) Both our boys were pretty good about giving those up early. Our neighbour girl just turned 5 this month and I think she gave hers up just this winter. A little too long in my estimation, but who am I to judge, right?
Norah still gets her bink at night, but only at night. I have long been against this, askign my wife if we could start the war against the bink. She declined. However, I will say that I was very glad of this a few months ago when we moved Norah to a « big girl bed. » We put her down, she got up. We put her down, she got up. Then my wife had one fo the greatest brainstorms yet. She explained to Norah that the bink was only for in bed. It was the same rule we’d always had, but we’d never had to enforce it. We watched on the monitor and when she got out of bed we just went in and removed the bink. If she got back in bed, she got it back. It took exactly three repetitions of this cycle and she never got out again.
Now, however, I’m ready to get rid of the bink again 😉
And congrat, Xavier!!
I got lucky on this one; it came out naturally. I was like your wife, Moksha, not wanting to start a war over it. I was not about to tear away my little boy’s nighttime comfort and leave him shivering in the cold misery of an empty bed.
He has started to be more difficult to put to bed at nap time, however, and he sometimes has trouble going back to sleep. He doesn’t ask for his soother specifically, though, so I’m not reintroducing it. Plus, I think it’s a mixture of this and the fact that, as he’s getting older, he still needs a pm nap, but he’s not tired as early in the afternoon. Today he made a fuss until 3pm because he wanted to nap in OUR bed.
We have had the binky bed restriction for a long while, too. Not just for the pacifier: the stuffed dog and blankie he sleeps with has to stay in the bed. We put up the rule for textile hygiene reasons (he used to munch on the dog’s ear).
Simon, I saw a girl about that age a while back at the mall, with a thumb stuck in her mouth. I guess the plastic version is easier to loose. And from watching Orly go, I believe you for the quicker second-born; she’s already sort of starting to help when dressing herself – pulling collar over her head, slipping arms into shirt.
Ah, the « put him down, he gets back up » cycle… Frank and I used to take turns being « on watch »; we had a contest as to who put Xavier back in bed the most times. I think one of us hit 52 times one evening.
A couple more months and we’ll be back at it with Orléane. Should be doubly fun since the kids share a room, and Xavier will certainly want to join the game.
I’ll keep your trick in mind.
Potty training, well… Xavier isn’t ready, that’s for sure. He does everything right and likes to pretend, but nothing comes out. And I guess we ourselves don’t have enough devotion for it right now. It’s a little tough spending 5-10 minutes in the bathroom with Xavier regularly while the one-year-old is roaming the house out there, or interrupting us. And he still prefers to be considered a baby like his sister, than doing like us – a sort of jealousy, that.
I think I’ll cut some slack on this for a while yet. His learning curve will probably be similar to Ben’s, which is fine.