The Nut’s relationship with her paci has been, um, unconventional.
She rejected it for the first nine months and then unintentionally (on my part) adopted it with a passion at almost two years of age. It served as a huge helper in weaning her from the breast and dramatically improved her sleep, so we went with it.
Prior to her third birthday we made a plan for the Paci Fairy to pay us a visit. She was on board and she traded in a box full of “broken” pacis for a new camera. It seemed to go okay. At first.
The Nut didn’t really ask to have her paci back, but she fell apart before our eyes over the next few weeks. She stopped sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time. She gave up napping all together. She was cranky and moody and miserable. She wasn’t eating well and finally she got sick. It was like watching a junkie go through withdrawal.
Around day fifteen, following a night of almost no sleep, I was doing everything I could to get her to nap. I drove around for miles. I snuggled her in bed. I pushed her in the stroller (six months pregnant in August.)
I finally gave up. I found one remaining paci that had not been snipped and I gave it to her. She quite literally popped it into her mouth and passed out.
It was a complicated parenting moment. I felt guilty for being so inconsistent. I felt guilty for obviously torturing her. I felt guilty for letting her develop this vice. When she napped for several hours and woke up with a glimmer of her old self shining through, I said F… it.
That was a year ago. We’ve since been pretty strict about using the paci only in her own bed. The topic of giving it up is broached, but she’s never been the least bit interested.
Seven days ago we were in Tennessee. The Nut and I were laying down before bedtime. I started talking about her fourth birthday and the paci. I didn’t offer up any bribery, nor any shame. I just reminded her that she should start thinking about when she would like to try sleeping without her paci. I left it at that and we read a book and talked about our favorite parts of that day.
As she was winding down, she looked at me and said, “Mama, I think I want to try no paci today.” I calmly said, “Okay,” while my insides cheered and squealed.
I stayed with her until she fell asleep. It took some extra back rubbing and hand-holding, but she did it. She slept all night without issue. The next night was even easier. Now it’s been a week.
She still wants a paci nearby, “to look at,” but she hasn’t touched it.
Parenthood seems to be a series of milestones. We are constantly grabbing at new achievements while we swat away annoyances. We so rarely settle in and trust that things will work out.
Now here I stand on the other side of what I once imagined to be a HUGE problem. And I see so clearly that THIS TOO SHALL PASS should be tattooed on our sweet babies’ foreheads at birth.
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