It is no secret that I dread taking my children's ya-yas (a.k.a. pacifiers) away from them because it is their number one sleep aid. I am a big fan of schedules, routines, nap time, and children falling asleep in a prompt manner...and when we take the ya-yas away, a lot of this goes out the door. Luckily, it is usually a temporary thing, but I still don't like doing it. As a result, we have never been the parents to take away the pacifier around our children's second birthday which is when all the doctors and dentists recommend doing it. Lia was two years and ten months old and Logan was two years and seven months old...and the only reason why Logan lost his so young is because his teeth were already starting to buck out so badly.
After I booked our trip to Mexico for Spring Break at the beginning of January, I decided that we would wait until after the trip was over to take away Ella's pacifier so that it would help her fall asleep on the plane and in our hotel room even though this meant waiting until after her third birthday. However, Ella came down with a really bad cold/flu towards the tail end of our trip to Mexico which meant I wasn't willing to take it away from her right after we got home. I waited nine days after our return before allowing the dreaded day to arrive a week ago today. And I must add that out of all three of our children, Ella was hand's down our most addicted child to the ya-ya. Although we implemented the same rule with her that we did with our other two children of keeping the pacifier in the crib at all times after the first birthday (with the exception of trips), Ella broke this rule many times a day. She would sneak upstairs when no one was looking, reach into her crib, pull out a ya-ya, and pop it into her mouth. Sometimes she would secretly stay upstairs and play in her bedroom, but most of the time Ella would boldly walk downstairs with it in her mouth and carry on like nothing was wrong. Ron or I would then have to notice the ya-ya in her mouth AND manage to get it out of her mouth multiple times a day. I would always have one, two, or three pacifiers sitting in the relish dish I keep on the window sill behind my kitchen sink every single day. I would normally return all of these pacifiers back to her crib at bedtime every night and then we would start all over again the next day. Yes, this process was tiring day after day after day...and some times, I wouldn't fight it because I was so tired of fighting it and then Ella would get away with having the pacifier in her mouth longer than usual.
And so it is for this extra reason that I was pretty nervous about Ella's reaction to losing her beloved ya-ya. But last Monday came whether we liked it or not. I had been talking to Ella quite some time about losing her ya-ya because it was hurting her teeth. I even took her to the store a few days earlier and let her pick out a large and regular sized Beanie Boo to give her "comfort" in her bed after the ya-ya was gone. She seemed totally fine with all of this and even talked about it excitedly with her father and siblings after she got the stuffed animals. However, I soon figured out that none of this really meant anything to her until it actually happened...and then she was most definitely NOT fine with it. I snuck upstairs last Monday evening and cut the tips off of all four of her pacifiers and then put them back into her bed. When it was time to get ready for bed, Ella followed the rest of the gang upstairs while I finished the dinner dishes. It was during this time that she ran into her room to get a ya-ya out of her bed and discovered that they were all "broken." World War III then broke out. Ella started throwing one of the loudest and biggest tantrums of her career. Ron was totally unable to console her and so I quickly finished doing the dishes and ran upstairs to find my distraught child screaming and crying at the top of her lungs in her bedroom. I had to pick her up, turn off her light, turn on her music, and rock her in her chair for several minutes before she finally started to calm down. She was then able to tell me (in between gasps and hiccups), "Mommy, I am not happy." Oh, it just broke me heart. After I told her that she needed to be brave just like Merida, she then said (also between more gasps and hiccups) that she didn't want to be brave. The poor, little thing!
I then had a long pep talk with her and after offering to get her several things the next day if she was able to go to sleep without her ya-ya, I discovered that all she really wanted was a lollipop. I promised her that we would get one the next day and she agreed to go to bed. And, to my surprise, I put Ella down a little after 8 o'clock and she didn't cry another minute the rest of the night. Since I had brought her monitor into my room, I could tell that it took her an entire hour to fall asleep, but she never got out of her bed or made another peep again. That was a massive relief to me. The next day, I went to the bank to withdraw some money and got a free lollipop from the teller to give to Ella. She was most pleased with this. After we came home and had lunch, I nervously put Ella down for her afternoon nap and crossed my fingers that she would fall asleep. Logan and Lia both took a really long time to fall asleep for their first nap without the ya-ya, but they eventually did fall asleep. Not Ella. She banged around in her crib for over two hours before I threw in the towel and let her come out. Needless to say, this made me very nervous that she was going to completely stop napping from this point on in her life. She quickly fell asleep that night out of pure exhaustion and did just fine the rest of the night. However, I was very worried as to what the next day would bring, but to my surprise, Ella fell asleep for her nap within ten minutes of putting her down. I couldn't believe it.
And a week later, I am happy to admit that we are totally out of detox. I simply cannot believe how quickly Ella let go of her pacifier and moved on. With the exception of the first day, she has been able to fall asleep quickly every single day for her nap and has had no problem going to bed at night either. In fact, this has been the easiest we have had it with all three of our children which just makes no sense to me considering how much more addicted to the pacifier Ella was in comparison to Lia and Logan. Although I don't understand it, I am most definitely not complaining! I am so relieved to be done with this transition in Ella's life and am so grateful that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, but I must admit, there is a side of me that misses seeing that cute, big button in Ella's mouth. There is just something so adorable about a baby and toddler sucking on a ya-ya. A part of me is so not ready for this baby of mine to grow up...
