Bye Bye Bink

When Kate was just a wee babe, we had several different types of pacifiers or "binks", as we call them, that we received as gifts from our showers.  We used it sparingly when she was an infant and newborn, but she was never really interested in it.  She had always preferred the real thing!  Even though we snapped the cutest photo ever of her with a bink when she was teensy tiny, for the next 12-ish months they didn't really excite her.

6-week old Kate with her first bink!
Be still my heart.

Just after Kate turned one and we officially weaned from breast feeding we noticed a change though.  The teachers at her school mentioned that she was particularly interested in other friend's binks.  At first I kind of thought, "Well, we haven't introduced one yet.  Why would we now?"  But then I thought that if she was interested that I'd let her explore.

She grew to love the thing.  Her bink and her blanket were her bedtime staples.  I can still hear her little voice, "Bink?  Bink?"

2 year 3 month old Kate with her bedtime staples!
Love.

Over the last ten months, her bink and her blanket have been her safety net.  But now she's about to turn two.  She is talking up a storm and, in our opinion, it's time to say adios to our binks.

I read forums and researched best practices for weaning off of the pacifier.  I hemmed and hawed and thought to myself of what would work best for us.  I put myself in Kate's shoes and I thought of how intelligent Kate is.  I thought the best way for us to say goodbye to our pacifiers was to explain things to Kate, in her terms, and have her help us put them away.  That way a.) she has an understanding of what we are doing, and b.) we can tell her where they are when/if she asks for them.

We decided we would do this on a Friday night so that we would have the weekend to adjust should we not get any sleep.

And last night was the night.

I scattered her binks around her room all in areas that we either put binks and/or found them at any points and put a couple downstairs in areas that she would see - the bench, the stool, etc.  Brian and I brought Kate upstairs and explained to her that we were going to put her binks away "until there was a new baby in the house".  We told her that we were getting bigger and didn't need to use the binks anymore, and we asked her to help us collect them all to put in the container that we had.

Bink and all of her blankets.  She knew something was up and
needed reinforcements!

Placing the binks she found in our container.

Mommy explaining there's one more bink left...
...in her mouth!

She made sure we didn't do anything else with
those binks and kept a very close eye on them.

She kept her last bink in all the way down to the
basement.

Kate really enjoyed this.  She loves helping and this challenge was right up her alley!

After we put all the binks in the container and Kate and I walked all the way down to the basement and put the container of binks into the plastic bin of "baby stuff".  (One of several, I might add.)  I debated letting her see where we were going to put the binks and decided that letting her see the whole process all the way through was the best thing for Kate.  I have always approached new things with her by explaining them all the way from the beginning to the end.  She is very much a child who may not be able to express everything that she comprehends just yet but fully comprehends what I say to her, so I figured it would be best for her to understand where we put all of our binks as opposed to lying and saying they went "bye-bye" or something of that nature.

We carried on with our night and did our normal nighttime routine.  She asked for her bink once and I reminded her that we put them away for when there was a new baby in the house.  Just like we had explained to her earlier.  And that was that.  No fuss, no tears, no protesting.

This girl is a trooper.  She continues to amaze me every day.  She is so strong and whether or not she really wanted her bink, she didn't let it show.

It makes me a little sad to say goodbye to the binks too, I'm not going to lie.  I felt like there was a little essence of babyhood that still lived in those binks and now she's going to bed without them.  She is officially my big girl.  I will always cherish that little binked baby who snuggled with me, her bink and her blanket every single night.  At least I know I've got a few more years of snuggles!

Brian added some filters to one of the photos above to capture this moment and he definitely nailed it.  Bink, blanket, baby Kate, perfection.  This is what it's all about.

Bye bye bink.