Pittsburgh Nesties
october2004
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Taking the paci away from a 3.5 year old
This is definitely a post I thought I'd never write before I became a parent. Will uses the paci for naps and at night to sleep. I don't think he keeps it in all night, but he uses it to fall asleep and puts it back in to fall asleep if he wakes up. It's (way past) time for it to go.
Anyone have any experience taking a paci away from a kid around this age? Did you bribe your kid? How long did it take for him or her to adjust? Advice? I am fully expecting this to be the end of the nap. *sob*
"Never go with a hippie to a second location." ~ Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
Re: Taking the paci away from a 3.5 year old
Jackson was a little over 3 when we took his away. He started chewing on it to the point where he was biting through the paci. I gave him a warning that if he started biting it again it was gone. He did it and I held to my word.
I expected it to be terrible, but we had one night of horrible screaming, and then it was over. He didn't even ask for it anymore.
I'll say a prayer you have a similar reaction from Will.
We took the binky away from Brinley a few months after she turned 3. I'm not goiing to lie--it was rough. DD is very headstrong in general and naptime and night time became a battleground for awhile.
We also totally bribed her. We let her go to toys r us and pick out anything she wanted. At night when she wanted the binky she'd tell us to take the princesses back to the store.
Now for the good news. It took about 3 months, but it got better. She returned to napping and bedtime has gotten better. It's not as great as it was with the binky...where she'd look forward to naptime and nighttime, but it's definitely better.
We took DD's binky away when she turned 3. She used it for sleep only as well, but it was time. It wasn't as bad as I feared. In 3 days, it was as if she never used it. And those 3 days weren't rough - we told her the binky fairy came and collected all her binks and left her a scooter.
Good luck!
Here's my advice...how ever you decide to take them away is up to you but when you do take them away, THROW THEM AWAY. That way if things get a little rough you won't be tempted to just give one back.
yes, this too. Don't want them finding it a month later and undoing everything you have already accomplished either!
ME! And it was the end of naptime for us, but it had to go! I also never thought I'd be that mom, but it was just for sleep time and it was so easy to say yes to b/c it brought her such comfort. With Wes, I never let him have a paci b/c I knew I was too much of a pushover the first time around and I did nto want to go through that again.
Anyway, we ordered the Paci Fairy book (it was so worth it for an older child IMO). We started just reading it, and finally we made her pick a date and we stuck to it. It ended up being close to Xmas, which sucked in a way but it helped that it was a busy time. The first 24 hrs was bad and I nearly caved more than once. But after a week, things got easier. My advice is to actually throw them away so that you're not tempted to cave when things get ugly.
I'll add my data point. And I agree with Amanda that the timing can really make the difference at this age. They can be so stubborn and want to be in control, but if they are open to the idea you can really talk them through it and bargain over it.
Heather started chewing her pacifiers and breaking them after she turned 2 1/2. At this point she wasn't using them to nap at daycare, but was using them for naps and bedtime at home. So we started throwing them away when they were broken and whittled down the number in the house. We told her we weren't buying any more and someday soon she'd be a big girl who didn't use a paci - basically to plant the idea in her head, not as a threat.
At Christmas, we were down to 2 or 3 pacis and we only took one with us to Ohio. The morning we were leaving Heather noticed that the paci was broken and voluntarily threw it away. Cue the WORST car ride ever. I'm pretty sure she whined and cried for 90% of the 4 1/2 hour drive. I began to feel like we were going to have it in our lives for a long time.
A few weeks later, we were down to 1 paci and neither of us could find it at bedtime. We looked all over. She whined a bit at bedtime for the next few nights without it, but that was it. It was gone and it wasn't really a big deal at all, especially compared to the horrid car ride. A few days later, I found the missing paci under our bed and threw it away.
It did contribute to the end of naptime. I tried to enforce quiet time, but since I was simultaneously dealing with Todd's naps, I couldn't get her to stay in her room. For my sanity, we switched to movie time. But if you can enforce quiet time in his room/bed, he'll probably go back to napping eventually.
Good luck!