We are now binky-less! Hoorah!

We did it. It's 100% full-fledged official! We are completely without the Binkie at 21 months old. For those of you that don't know, we decided to take away Julianna's binkie this past weekend. Julianna was very reliant on it and we felt she was getting to old and it was our time to do it. This was a long time coming and I was beyond terrified to do it. Let me tell you - it was a thousand million times easier than I ever imagined.

Friday night, Brian and I did not let Julianna have her binkie at all. We went to dinner and she did fine. She did not ask for it once. (wow!) We went home and put her to bed. Then she started crying and begged for it. That was the absolute hardest thing to do. She was putting her arms through the slats of the crib crying for "Mama & Daddy" and her "Shweee-weee" (Binkie) with big sad pitiful eyes. It killed us to walk out but we had to. It was time. She cried for about 2 minutes and fell asleep. YUP, that was it. Two whole minutes of crying.

She did not wake up crying at night at all. She asked for it in the morning but did not push the issue, and got distracted by something else. Smooth sailing from there... the rest of the weekend was cake. Bedtime on Saturday night went without a hitch. She went right to sleep like a normal night. Yeeehaw! Binkie is gone!

For any other mama out there that is in the same situation that we were, and you are ready to take away the binkie, don't be scared. You can do it too! Three words for you. Don't be scared. Our immense fear of what would happen 'when', kept us from taking it away from her for a long time! I think the binkie was our crutch even more than it was Julianna's crutch. She relied on it all day - and we relied on it to soothe her and keep her calm. I always knew she would not go to college with a binkie, but never thought about when or how to take it away.


How we did it

• We decided to do it cold turkey. I did briefly try to explain to Julianna about the Binkie fairy - but she could care less. That 'theory' might work better for older toddlers. (The 'Binkie Fairy theory' is where the fairy comes in the middle of the night to collect all the binkies and bring them to newborn babies who need them). 
• We planned this 'Bye-Bye to Binkie' on a full weekend where no one was visiting and nothing 'out of the norm' was going on. . 
• Julianna had a "Binkie Basket" where her assortment of binkies were kept. That basket was kept up on top of a shelf in the kitchen. This was her spot where she would stand asking/begging for her binkies for the last few months. (and we would always give it to her of course). Well, on Friday, I removed the baskets and hid them, and threw out the binkies. No.Going.Back.  
• We followed her normal nightly routine and put her to bed. She asked & cried for it but we did not give in. Brian and I stood strong. No.Going.Back. 
• Distraction ... Distraction ... Distraction. Any time she asked her binkie, we {ignored her} and then distracted her with something else, and she easily followed our lead.

Overall - taking away the binkie was much much easier than we ever thought. I can't believe we let our fear control us like we did for so long. I would have done this months ago if I knew it was going to be this easy! We had one sucky night. That's it! And only a few bad minutes of crying. Phhhhhttttt .... Not terrible! 

One downside - Julianna is sticking her fingers in her mouth more now (as seen below). My guess is, she is just compensating for her binkie being gone. Kind of like when an x-smoker turns to major gum-chewing to make up for that "fix". I think that will go away in a few weeks....