Bye-Bye Paci

Those of you who know Reagan also know that she has two great loves in her life: her cow and her pacifier. She is only allowed to have the latter while she is sleeping or preparing for sleep. For months we have been subtly trying to convince Reagan that she no longer needs a paci--that big girls don't sleep with one--to no avail. This week something extreme happened that brought Reagan's paci days to an immediate halt.

Reagan has developed a bad habit of undressing herself (see earlier posts), particularly during naptime when she has decided she really doesn't want to nap. And it's not enough to simply undress herself. She has to dismantle her diaper into hundreds of tiny pieces. (If you've ever taken apart a diaper, you understand what a huge mess this makes.) So far, these diapers had all been merely wet. But on Wednesday the diaper was, as we say, a "shoo-shoo."

I went in to check on Reagan about ten minutes after putting her in the crib. She was undressed from the waist down, holding her filthy hands out in front of her with the diaper at her side. I began to assess the situation and form a plan of action. After an initial round of wipes, I put Reagan in the tub with LOTS of soap. As I was cleaning up the crib, it appeared that most of her bedding was relatively clean. (That didn't, however, prevent me from washing everything--including toys--in hot water for two cycles.) Then I saw it--the paci. And, you guessed it, it was "tainted."

My first instinct was to save it. How could we live without it? Then I thought, "No. This is it. The moment we've been working toward. The paci must go." I explained to Reagan that her paci had "poo poo" on it, and that it had to be thrown away. I also reminded her numerous times that this wouldn't have happened if she had kept her clothes on like I have told her again and again. (Hey, this was a tough moment for her, but I wanted her to know exactly who was at fault!) Then I gave her the princess pillow we had already promised her for when she gave up her paci.

The first night was rough. She cried, and I rocked her for a while. Even that didn't work, so I decided to lay down with her until she fell asleep. (I am generally opposed to this, but I knew that I could break the habit of sleeping with her a lot easier than I could break a two-year pacifier habit.) The next day, she went down for her nap without incident. And by the next night, she didn't make a peep when we put her to bed.

If I had known it would be this easy, we would have taken it away months ago! Reagan still talks about her paci and even asks for it sometimes, but we remind her that she's a big girl now and doesn't need it. And sometimes she even reminds us at bedtime: "No paci."