One Good Thing

I suppose one good thing has come out of the kids' being sick for the past few weeks. Well, for Ben anyway.

He has apparently weaned himself off the paci!

It seems as though he was so congested that he wasn't able to suck on the paci and breathe at the same time, and as much as he loves the paci, he figured breathing was more important.

We had been slowly cutting down the number of pacis in his crib over the past few weeks upon the recommendation from the pediatric dentist Ben saw in August; she said that Ben's front teeth were becoming misaligned as a result of paci use and sippy cups with spouts. She recommended that we get him off the paci ASAP and we switch to sippy cups with straws. We did the sippy cup switch immediately, as Ben had used straw cups before without a problem. The paci we decided to take more slowly, as he's very attached to it and we didn't want another huge transition on top of our upcoming move (everyone says that you shouldn't make a huge change on top of a change that's already happening, right?).

So, there were initially 6 pacifiers that we kept in his crib - the dark blue one, the blue and orange one, the white and red one, the green one, the clear one, and the all white one. He didn't seem to care too much for the clear one or the all white one, so I removed them first. He didn't bat an eye.

The dark blue one was the next to go, and I honestly don't even remember how it happened. Oops. Again, Ben didn't really seem to mind.

It was down to the remaining 3 for several weeks.

Next to go was the white and red one, and that was kind of traumatic for all of us. The white and red one had been in Ben's crib for a very long time, and he was quite attached to it. On the night of Ben's birthday, September 14th, we were all in Ben's room reading the boys a goodnight story. Steve somehow noticed that the white and red paci was broken - the nipple was coming off of the base. "They" say that this is a pretty extreme choking hazard for babies/toddlers, and pacis with this issue must been thrown away immediately. We tried to explain this to Ben. Luckily he understands the concept of "broken," and he could identify that the beloved white and red paci was in fact broken. He started to have a problem, however, when Steve put the paci on a high shelf on the bookcase, out of Ben's reach. He didn't understand that because the paci was broken, he couldn't use it anymore. He cried when he realized he wasn't getting the white and red paci back. It was so heartbreaking that I almost cried. That was by far the most traumatic paci loss yet.

The next morning, however, Ben seemed to be fine without the white and red paci. Woo hoo! We were being so successful, in fact, that the next night during our bedtime routine I simply took the green paci out of his crib without any fanfare at all. Again, he didn't seem to miss it at all.

So that left just the blue and orange paci. And that leaves us at the week when everyone got sick. Of course, when our kids are sick, we get a little lax on the rules of the house. The "typical" rules of the house state that paci's stay in the crib - upon awakening, Ben gives the paci to the frog in his crib, and there it stays. Except during times of sickness. So every morning, and after every nap, down came the orange and blue paci with Ben. He sucked and sucked and sucked on that thing. He probably couldn't believe his luck - he had several days in a row filled with the paci being allowed downstairs and watching back-to-back episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Handy Manny. What could be better?

Then the congestion started, and all of a sudden I noticed that although Ben still insisted on bringing the paci downstairs, he no longer sucked on it. He just held it in his hand all day long. It was amazing to see that even though he wasn't sucking on it, it still brought him comfort just to be holding it.

That was almost two weeks ago, and I don't believe he has sucked on the paci once since then. His congestion is almost 100% gone, and still no sucking. This seems to be one of those blessings in disguise - of course I hate that my son was so sick for such a long time, but woo hoo - we're off the paci!!