Cold Turkey

Last week I finally convinced myself that it was time to take Abbie's crib bumper out of her crib. Between the suffocation hazzard and the possibility of her somehow stepping on it to climb out of the crib (not that she's that mobile yet) I decided that she'd be better off without it. I was concerned that she would have trouble sleeping, since with the bumper she couldn't see out of the crib without sitting up, and without it she can see the whole room through the crib rungs. But she's done pretty well falling asleep.

The trouble is her pacifier. Now, originally, I didn't want to use a pacifier at all. But she turned out to be pretty colicy for the first 6 or 7 weeks of her life, so we chose the lesser of two evils (using a pacifier vs. us going insane). I've been hoping to have her completely weaned from this piece of plastic by 12 months. Not only do the orthodontic ramifications get worse after 1 year, but also the habbit gets harder to break. So we've stopped giving her the pacifier during the day, and are only using it in her crib to help her fall asleep.

The only problem with this is, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, Matt has to get up, go to her room, search for the pacifier and then put it back in her mouth.

Now that the crib bumper no longer acts as a barrier, Abbie has taken to chucking her pacifier across the room. And this kid has good distance.

So last night, at 3:30am, Abbie wakes up crying. Matt goes in to re-give the pacifier to her, but he cannot find it! (We still have no idea where she hid the stupid thing). After about 10 minutes of searching, Matt comes back into our room completely exasperated. At which point, we decide it's time to get rid of the pacifier.

Cold turkey.

So today has been challenging. Abbie isn't used to going to sleep without something to suck on, so her naps have been few and far between. I'm expecting the same thing to happen tonight and for at least the next few days.

But my resolve is staying strong!!