Tonight something became crystal clear to me - I'm a hostage to the soother.
My son, who's 2, loves his soother. It's funny because when he was really little he didn't like it at all, but as he has gotten older it's his favourite thing next to a bottle of chocolate milk.
But it seems like lately we have become hostage to the soother. Tonight there is no soother because I have somehow misplaced it. Neither Mike or I can find it anywhere and we have looked everywhere. The question is, are we hostage to the soother.
My answer is slowly becoming yes. And I am thinking it's time to ween from it.
The problem is that I think it is me who will have a harder time than Matthew.
At daycare he seems okay with no soother. He gets it at nap time. Period. The rest of the day he survives without it. They claim he is fine. But, what do they do when he has a temper tantrum? What do they bribe him with when he's not listening or take away when he is being bad?
A very brave friend of mine decided that she would just name the date and then take away the soother. She followed through with this too. Since we live in a condo she simply let her kids throw their soothers down the garbage chute.
And it worked. Her kids are weaned of their soothers (her daughter is less than a week older than Matt so is a good gauge for me). But, she was totally on board with the idea. She also was able to throw a very beloved DVD down the chute when she had to follow through with a threat.
Am I being critical?
Of course not. I think it's genius.
I just don't know if I am ready or not. I'm way too attached to it and the value it plays in our life.
So, I guess we have a few options. We can take option A - the option Ginny took and dispose of the soother. Problem being, I would need to have Ginny throw it down the chute for me because I would wimp out. There's Option B - Let him keep it and give it up when he's ready even if that is like age 5. Or there's Option C - slowly slowly wean him from the beloved soother.
For now I have no idea what we're doing.
I just sent Mike to the car to hunt it out. We'll see if he finds it or not.
PS. Yes, I have thought about having more than one soother. I think we have about 26 I just can't find any.
2 comments:
The Happy Boy loves his pacifier. We only let him have it when he sleeps - naps and nighttime. When he gets up, he must give it to us, or we don't let him out of his bed.
He usually will just hand it to us in the morning, but some days he refuses to give it up. On those days, I like to open up his shutters and look out the window, talking about what I see...cars...birds...balls bouncing down the street...
I hate teh stupid device, and cannot wait to get THe Happy Boy off of it. But he's just 1 and a half, so I don't know if I should do it yet!
Well don't fret, we are hostage to the bottle which is odd because Mac was off it by 13 months, but then again she doesn't drink milk now! I sometimes have no idea how we will wean Lindsey off the bottle.
And in all honesty our darling Mac, who was the queen of happily going to bed, has now become the queen of stalling and getting up several times. And it all started after the time change which was oddly enough the time we dumped the soother down the chute! I guess one could say it has something to do with the time change but we all know it's not having the soother anymore.
But then Lindsey Lou who is barely older than Matty-matt doesn't miss it a bit! The problem is is that you just never know how they will react!
The most important thing to remember is that when you are ready to break a habit(and make sure it's when you are ready and not because people are telling you it's time), it's go hard or go home. You can't turn back
I hate that we are held hostage to these silly things. Diapers, bottles, soothers etc. I guess in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. I certainly have never met anyone my age is uses these things still have you?
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