End of an Era

Sebastian no longer uses a pacifier. This is huge. He's had one since he was two weeks old, and has always been ridiculously attached to it. He's always been a very quick eater, and when he was tiny, that meant that he'd breastfeed until he was full and still want to suck. So he'd eat too much and then be miserable. Solution: introduce the pacifier. That way, he could eat until he was full and then stop. If he still wanted to suck, he could do that without making himself sick.

We started with soothie pacifiers, and he really liked them. The only problem was that he'd spit them out and the dogs would eat them. We went through at least a dozen until we had enough. Enter our savior: the Wubbanub. It's a soothie pacifier with a little stuffed toy attached to it, to keep the paci from flying even if it's spit out. It also gives little uncoordinated hands something bigger to grab onto and helps reduce the need for parents to constantly do "paci patrol." Seriously, I recommend these to everyone I know who has a baby. Best baby item we ever got, hands down.

Sebastian has the froggy one. We call it his Froggy Friend. He LOVES that thing. One of his first words was "bah," which is how he says "frog." For the first 18 months of his life, that thing has been his best friend. We bought several just in case so that we'd always have one available. He has a green one for daytime use, and a "nighttime frog" that is purple. Miss Purple Frog stays in his crib and is only available for naps. He puts her back in his crib when we leave his room, and then waves "bye bye" to her. It's adorable.

We were wondering how in the world we were ever going to break his addiction to his "bah." How could we take away his best friend? Would it be a disaster? Would he freak and throw tantrum after tantrum if we dared take it away? We figured there was no point even trying right now, with the new baby coming so soon and everything, and hoped that a natural situation for pacifier-weaning would present itself. And amazingly, it ended up doing just that, sooner than we had hoped, even.

About a week ago, Sebastian bit through the pacifier part of the green frog he's had since he as two weeks old. That's a pretty good run for something that has pretty much been used daily for a year and a half. We quickly took the frog from him and cut the tip off, so he wouldn't be able to choke on the flap of silicone hanging off of it. We gave the frog back to him, and told him that it was "broken," but that it was still ok. He put it in his mouth, and got a very concerned look on his face. Then he held it up to us and put his hands up, his way of saying "uh-oh." We told him that the pacifier was broken, but that the frog was still ok and he could still play with it. So he ran off with it and was fine. (At the time, he had two green frogs that were in rotation, but one of them was MIA since he hid it somewhere, so we didn't look for it and just went with the "broken" frog. He found the intact one a day or two later, but it was spirited away when he wasn't looking and he hasn't noticed...)

He still had Miss Purple Frog in his crib for naps and bedtime, of course, and that was fine with us. We figured getting rid of the nighttime frog would be much more of a disaster, since he uses it to comfort himself if he wakes at night. Well, a few nights ago, he was putting the pacifier of the purple frog into his mouth, clamping down with his teeth, and pulling. We warned him several times that he should stop, or he would break it. He kept right on doing it anyway, until he ripped the tip right off. So that frog, too, was cut for safety, and we had to tell him that he broke it, and that was just how things were. He did the same "uh-oh" thing, and kept pointing to the broken part, but really seemed to understand that he did it, and there was no going back.

We braced ourselves for a horrendous night of no nighttime frog. We had the back-up intact frog on a shelf in the laundry room, in case the situation got dire, but figured now was as good a time as any to try a frog-less night. Well, not frog-less, because he still got to take Miss Purple Frog to bed. But she wasn't her old self. Amazingly, the night went wonderfully. He woke up once around 2am, cried for a few minutes, and went back to sleep. Without a pacifier. We were flabbergasted. He even slept until like 6:30am, which is late for him. Subsequent nights have gone equally well, even with teething woes. He did wake up two nights ago and had trouble going back to sleep, but that wasn't frog-related.

So we're paci-free! Once in a while he still comes up to us, frog in hand, and points to the "broken" part, puts his hands up and says "Oooh" in a sad voice, as if to say, "Look, my frog is broken, but it's ok." Then he either happily trots off with it in his hand, or gives it to us for safe-keeping. I have no idea where the frog is right now. And we don't have to go on a frog-hunt when we leave the house anymore. He seems totally fine without it. He seems to be babbling more, now, too...go figure, without something in his mouth all the time.

It'll be interesting to see what happens if Oliver takes to the pacifier and there's one available again. We have a pair of Monkey Wubbanubs reserved for him. I'm hoping that Sebastian will be ok with the fact that the frogs are for him, and the monkeys are for his brother. Time will tell.

But for now, his froggy friend is just a toy. It's the end of an era, and somehow that's a bit bittersweet. It's yet another piece of evidence telling me that my baby is actually a little boy now. And that's as it should be. Good thing I'll have a new itty bitty before long, eh? One big boy and one baby. Sebastian is already living up to his title as big brother. What a good boy.