Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Third Birthdays are for Torture


When our children turn three instead of giving them some super awesome gift that they are going to love, we choose to give them the gift of torture instead. On their third birthday, they are forced to give up their binkies. Now I know a lot of people kick the binky habit earlier but I let it slide. Once they turn one it becomes only a nighttime thing and they are able to keep it at night until they turn three.  We talk it up a lot before how they will be big kids when they are three and no longer need binkies since binkies are for babies.

When Isabelle turned three it was not an easy transition. She cried and cried the first night until she realized she could just steal Henry’s binkies from his crib. Of course, she wouldn’t just steal one of them but she would take them all from him. Starting at basically the age that they can move, I always surround the baby with binkies so that at any turn he/she could get one which increases my ability to have a full night’s sleep!  Of course that doesn’t help their addiction since they all started sleeping with binkies in their mouth and in each hand! So back to poor Henry who was behind bars and unable to defend himself from his binky stealing sister, he would obviously start crying. So for a few weeks, we played this “game” although she eventually smartened up and waited for Henry to fall asleep before she turned into a thief. Eventually though the thrill of it was lost and she would fall asleep on her own without performing her nightly burglar routine.

I thought that Henry would have a harder time with giving them up since he seems like more of a baby at this age than Isabelle did. She was always somewhat “advanced” for her age and if she had a hard time with it I was afraid it would be a complete nightmare with Henry. Plus, he’s still in a crib so he couldn’t get out to steal Daniel’s binks!  So yesterday was Henry’s third birthday so we had been prepping him for the big binky free night and I was prepping myself for lots of tears. I brought him up to his crib, tucked him in, and reminded him that he was big now and didn’t need his binkies. I saw a tiny little lip quiver and I thought, “Oh no, here it comes!!!” but I offered him a few new birthday cars to bring to bed instead and he was fine. Yup, HE WAS FINE. He did not cry at all. He happily went to bed. He slept the whole night without waking up. When he did wake up in the morning, he acted completely normal. It was as if the binkies never even existed. I still can’t even believe it. It was AMAZING.

This big kid is binky free!

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