broken binky

<

Since Hailey was born she was destined to be a binky baby :-) As soon as her little mouth was big enough they stuffed a "preemie" binky in her mouth to help teach her to suck before she could really breastfeed or take a bottle. Once she caught on to the bottle (sadly she never caught on to breastfeeding) we still didn't kick the binky habit because BINKY = PEACE and QUIET. Hailey has always suffered from reflux and due to this was a pretty fussy baby. Thankfully binky was there to fill in the gaps when I couldn't comfort her or take away the pain.



I don't know if this was a good crutch to lean back on, but it was sure a lifesaver! Then as she grew she became attached to her banky as well. It has gotten to the point where I feel sometimes when she is hurt it doesn't matter if mommy or daddy is around as long as she has binky/banky. So now at 2 years old mommy has to make sure she does not leave the house without the two of them or we are in BIG trouble!



Now that I have created this problem for myself I realize it may be time to back off them a little. She needs to learn to soothe herself without binky. I figure I will take one step at a time. Banky isn't such a big deal during the day, she just needs it for nap/bedtime so I feel that is fine. So we start with binky. I feel at this point having it to fall asleep is o.k., but needing it throughout the day to soothe is a little excessive. So we are trying to wean down slowly. I have read what others mother have tried and decided to try the approaching of cutting the nipple down. Some mom's say their kids will use it anyway, but I figure why not give it a try since she didn't buy the story that other little babies needed them :-)



One day last week I cut one of her binky's down and when she asked for it I handed it to her and told her it was broken. She looked at me, threw it in disbelief and went about playing. During the day my mom watches her while I am at work so I sent the broken binky on to her house. Like clockwork when Hailey is starting to getting a little tired or restless she ask for binky. My mom handed her the cut binky and she proceeded to look at it and say - " binky broken" - "I cut it" then again she throws it and is off and running. The next day she is at my mom's house again and instead of asking for her binky as she usually does she looks at my mom and says "binky broken - I wanna to see it". Now she walks around talking about her broken binky. She looked at me yesterday after leaving Nana's - "mommy, binky broken, I cut it". Now if we can just wean it down during car rides without constant screaming - argghh!

On another note it is so much fun hearing her try to put sentences together. When I am at work and my mom calls me I hear Hailey in the background "I wanna talk to Mommy". She also just started asking the question - "what is this"? Tonight at dinner she had to ask me that question right before every bite even if what she was putting in her mouth was the same as the bite before. We are still working on her ABC's and counting skills. The kid can remember the words of many songs, but ask her to count 1,2,3 and you can forget about it. I think its stubborness since I am constantly counting 1, 2,3. This is Hailey counting ... 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 - and she yells - 10! And ask her how old she is, she will tell you 3! I think she has a something against the number 2 ...