Let's start at the beginning....
Max has been a paci baby his whole life... I have WAY more pictures of him with the paci in his mouth than without. Recently, between our "paci jar" and the "you're not in your bed" rule, we've cut down on it quite a lot, but with Max, if he's chill for more than 5 seconds than he needs his paci-buggle, which is one word, because they go together so strongly in his mind-- kind of like the Max version of pb& j-- you just wouldn't have one without the other.
Well somewhere along the line, (WAY back in 2011) I decided that on January 1st, 2012 that we would throw the paci away-- there are a couple reasons for this:
1) I was falling victim to social pressures and disapproval for allowing my 2+ year old to have a paci
2) Chad is constantly worrying about his teeth
3) I thought January 1st, 2012 was a long, Long, LONG way away
But on January 1st, when he got out of bed, as we had discussed for the previous 1-2 weeks, Max put the paci in the trashcan and it hasn't been seen since. I must say that he handled it WAY better than I did-- it made me sad, like real tears were shed, and it still hurts my heart to think about it- probably because it did cause him some emotional distress, but mainly, because it was his last "baby" thing-- it made him look young and tiny and like my little baby Max.
Max fared much better.... he was a little bit sad but he never could find words for what he was feeling. He never asked for it, but when it came time to watch tv or cuddle up for his nap, there was something missing and he knew it. For a couple nights and a couple naps, he didn't sleep as well and he slept a little shorter than normal. He'd wake up whimpering in the night, but within a few minutes, he'd fall back to sleep. Which is good, because this sad mama heart would not have stood for much more. But now, here we sit 2 weeks later and he's completely whole, completely happy, sleeping as good as ever. (But I'm never taking his buggle away-- if he wants to take it to college, I'll encourage it! Slumber parties? Go right ahead! Put it in his coat pocket the day of his wedding? You betcha, that's every woman's dream for her groom!)
But since ripping that band-aid off wasn't nearly as painful as I had planned, I decided to go all in-- we had a couple more "bad" habits going on at the Bowman homestead, so why not conquer them all at once? I wasn't sleep good anyway, so why not make it worse? So, the new rules for Jack include not being picked up/ fed anytime before 4am (he eats at 7:30 and then started waking up like every hour or 2 and screaming his head off....) and I went ahead and broke his swaddle as well. "Swaddle?" you say, "isn't that for newborns?" To which I'd say yes! And Jack. He loves it. It makes him so happy-- he'll be fussing and I'll go swaddle him and he's practically asleep before I can lay him down. But he's almost outgrown every swaddle I can find on the market AND he needs to be rolling around and playing in his crib to develop all his muscles and learn new tricks-- so I went all in. Can't you just see that crazy in my eyes?
If Jack wakes before 4am, I just go in and sing. Slowly but surely he's decided that while those songs are nice, he'd rather just sleep if he can't get to GOOD stuff (milk!). So 3 of 4 last several nights, he's only woken up once. PTL. AND he has already taught himself to fall asleep unswaddled. Sometimes he does still wake up in the middle of the night, but he's not mad. He talks, rolls around, turns himself about, does a little hokey pokey, and then goes right back to sleep. So, once this becomes the rule, rather than the exception and blogworthy news, then I'm just going to sing at 4am too.
February will be the month where all the Bowman people sleep through the night, every single night. AND I'm busting my booty in January to make sure this is the case! It's go BIG or go home-- team MOM rocks!
Max's first picture ever with a paci:
Max's last picture ever with a paci
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