Well that was maybe just a little too easy....

Probably by even posting about it I'm jinxing the whole thing, but last night Punkin' gave up her pacifier, or her higgie as she calls it. We've never been a paci family. I mean, we've never called it a paci or a pacifier. When Bubba was a baby we called it a hootie because that's what my mother-in-law always called them. And the little clip that holds the pacifier to their shirt? Why, it was a hootie holder (in case you didn't know, I love me some alliteration!). When Punkin' came along, we still called it a hootie, but Punkin' took that word and put her own little spin on it and it became a higgie. And I have to say, that I like THAT word even more than hootie.

Both Bubba and Punkin' were hootie/higgie babies, thank God. I'm not sure what I would have done without them over the years and I feel true sympathy for those parents whose children won't take one. What do you do?! Anytime either of my children were inconsolable, all we had to do was offer their pacifier. If they woke crying in the middle of the night all I usually had to do was give them their hootie/higgie and they were satisfied. Well, except for THIS time.

There was a brief period when Bubba was a baby when he didn't really take to a pacifier. I was very into all the Braselton books about learning to self-soothe (which I STILL believe in, by the way) and I actually tried to encourage Bubba to suck his thumb. The thought of that now is horrifying because you can take a hootie/higgie away, but you can't take their THUMB away. I once knew a kid who sucked his thumb until well into elementary school. It was a wizened, withered little thing (his thumb, I mean) and he caught hell for it. His parents tried everything from bitter stuff on his thumb to even a contraption in his mouth that poked his thumb every time he put it in his mouth. Nothing worked. He's a grown man now and I'm pretty sure he's not still sucking his thumb, but I thank my lucky stars every day that Bubba was not interested in his thumb and eventually took to his hootie.

And getting Bubba to give up his hootie was actually pretty easy. I had steeled myself for a battle because he was very attached. But he started a new daycare at about 18 months and the lady who ran it was VERY old fashioned and slightly frightening and he was not allowed to have a hootie at school, not even at naptime. Side note about this woman. She once told me I should SPANK Bubba to get him to potty train at 18 months, that he was just being "stubborn." Um, no. I'll just be taking my son and moving along, thank you. Anyway, before the spanking "advice" came along, we had to wean him from his hootie so we started out by letting him have it only at naptime and bedtime. He knew when he got up that he had to leave it in the bed. And he was fine with that. Then we cut out naptimes. And finally we cut out nighttime. I don't remember a single night that he cried for his hootie. Easy as pie.

Punkin'? Not so much. NOTHING with Punkin is easy. She, too, was very attached to her higgie. She, too, started attending formal daycare at about 18 months, but her school (the same place I had moved Bubba to) was much more understanding of higgies and loveys. We did however, limit hers to bedtime and naptime as well. And then a couple of months ago, she got a case of thrush and we had to sterilize and sterilize and sterilize the higgies, which got to be a big ol' pain in the tushie. "Let's go cold turkey" I said. "No!" Punkin said. We did manage to get her to give it up at school, but at naptime and bedtime at home she still had to have it. "Why would you want to do that to yourself?" my mom asked. Good question. So, she kept it. I figured we would worry about it down the road, when she was a little older. When I could reason with her.

But last night, after bath, I thought, "What the heck. Let's give it a try." Every night after I put her pajamas on her, she likes to lie down on my and Mr. Daddy's bed. She puts her little head on Mr. Daddy's pillow, pats my pillow and says "Lay down, mommy." I do and I rub her back a little while she smiles at me (around her higgie) and looks at me with those gorgeous blue eyes.

So last night I said, "You don't need that higgie."

Punkin': "Mm hum"

Me: "No! You're a big girl. You don't need it. Let's put it the trash."

Punkin': "Okay" and she hands me the higgie! Just like that! Of course I didn't actually put it IN the trash. She might have really, really wanted it later and I'm still not 100% prepared to go cold turkey.

But she went to bed without it. She did ask for it once, but I said "We put it in the trash. Remember?" And that was that. She didn't cry for it. She didn't ask about it anymore. Huh. Who knew it would be that easy.

Update: I wrote this post earlier today. She did ask for her higgie at bedtime tonight, but again I said "Remember? We threw it in the trash." And she was satisfied. Woo hoo! Pat, pat, pat (that's me, patting myself on the back!)