We Are Now Binky-Free!

Something miraculous happened over this past week. Michael gave up his binky--cold turkey.

We weaned Michael from his beloved bottles a few months ago, but I just couldn't let him give up his binky just yet. I was dreading the day when we would have to sever Michael's attachment to his binky.
Binkys are just so useful when it comes to comforting Michael in the middle of the night. He tends to wake up at least once or twice. So when he wakes up, I wake up. When his binky was still around, I would just pop it back in Michael's mouth and everyone could go back to sleep.

Binkys are also very useful for those times when Michael decides to scream bloody murder when we are at a store. I don't know why people stare at screaming babies (and the seeming failure of a parent the baby is with) as if they've never seen a crying baby before. I use to keep an emergency binky in Michael's diaper bag strictly for this purpose.
See, Michael's use of his binky was a win-win situation for both of us.

However, my mom didn't quite feel the same way. Every time my mom would come over and see Michael with a binky, she would say that Michael was getting too old to have one. She would also frequently say that if we didn't give up his binky now, then he could end up being a 4-year-old, riding his bike down the street with a binky in his mouth. (Just picturing that makes me laugh)


My mom would also kindly remind me that when we were babies (my 2 brothers and me) we didn't use a pacifier past the age of 3 months. She also claims that we were all potty-trained, speaking in full sentences, and reciting Shakespeare from memory by the time we were 2 years old. (Ok, I made up that last part about reciting Shakespeare, but my mom has probably said something close to that over the years.)

Now, my mom has a tendency to exaggerate, but she did have a point regarding Michael's binky use. She made me realize that I was using Michael's binky as a crutch and I was allowing him to do the same. So last Sunday I decided it was time to do something about it.

We had been at my mom's house all day after my graduation, so Michael had been exhausted by the time we got home that night. He fell asleep in his bed and he didn't wake up the whole night.
In the morning, I realized that he hadn't used his binky at all the night before, so I decided to put all his binkys away, with the hope that Michael would just forget about them.
We kept him busy and distracted that day and the next night, he fell asleep again without his binky.
Since we were doing so well, I took all of Michael's binkys and put them away, out of his sight. We didn't even say the word 'binky' around Michael. We kept the binky strike going for the next few days and it went pretty smoothly.

A couple times though, Michael dragged out his diaper bag and started pulling everything out. I think he knew that his emergency binky would most likely be in there, but it wasn't, so he eventually lost interest.

I am happy to say we have been binky-free 9 days and counting and it wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be...