Bye Bye Binki

I am happy to report that Luke has officially given up his binki for good! Whatever you want to call it, binki, pacifier, schnuller, comforter, soothie, germ magnet or bee-bee (as Luke used to call it), it has been a thorn in my side for a while. I have kind of had a love/hate relationship with it. Neither Jimmy or Ben were really very interested in their pacifier, which was fine with me, except on Sunday's during church it would have been really nice. So I didn't have any experience with having to take it away from a toddler who is very attached to it. Luke always liked his binki very much. When he was going through all of his surgeries and hospital stays it really came in handy and provided some much needed comfort for him. Ever since his surgeries have been over I have been trying to figure out how to break him of the habit. For the last few months he has only been using it at nap time or bed time and it usually made the bed time ritual go very smoothly. So obviously, I was expecting a few nights of screaming and hollering but surprisingly we had very little crying. One night I just decided to put him to bed without it. I said to him that binkis are for babies and now that he is a big boy he doesn't need it with him anymore. Then we found some stuffed animal friends to keep him company in his crib and he went right to sleep. I was so relieved that the whole transition was relatively painless. He hasn't even asked for it once since then. It was a very happy day in my house when I got to throw the germ magnet in the trash for good :)