Bye Bye Paci

I have alot of things to catch up on here, but for today I am focusing on Bentley and his pacis.

Bentley is paci free! Yes I know he is 7 days away from being 3 years old, but I like sleep. I was not looking forward to many nights of sleeping struggles. The paci had stayed in his bed since he was 9 months old, and it was the first thing he would look for when we laid him down. I always kept 3 or 4 in there so he could easily find one in the middle of the night. The result of that was he had to have one in his mouth and one in each hand.

We started by taking away all but one. He got a hot wheels car for each paci he threw in the trash. After a week of only having one paci, we took him to the store and let him pick out a stuffed animal to trade for the last paci. He wanted to trade but he kept changing his mind when he would actually hand me the paci. Finally I had to tell him that was it and his paci was going bye bye (after back and forth for close to an hour). He cried like he lost his best friend and just looked devastated. He cried at first when we laid him down but I told him he didn't have to go to sleep but he needed to lay down and be quiet. He was quiet and eventually fell asleep.

It's been a little over two weeks and it has been HARD. He has taken a nap maybe 3 or 4 days, depending on how well he slept during the night. Some days he spends 3 or 4 hours in his bed just playing, but never falling asleep. And if he does take a nap, he then has a hard time falling asleep that night. Thankfully he's only had problems in the middle of the night 3 times, but they were all for many hours. Twice he had a mysterious foot ailment that was forgotten by morning, and the other night we both rubbed his back until he was asleep 10+ times only for him to wake up as soon as we left the room. He ended up crying for over an hour asking for "that" (which is what he called his paci). I hope it gets better soon and he goes back to his normal sleeping. He is a much happier and more obedient boy when he gets good sleep (and mommy is much more patient when she gets good sleep).

I'll be doing this again in a few years because Chance is now addicted to his paci. I don't like messing with sleep. If it works, I stick to it. Chance is also still swaddled for naps and night for this very reason, even though he is getting too big for it.