It looks like we have put the pacifier to bed permanently at the Kircher residence! Last night was night #6 without it. In keeping up with the consistent inconsistency, I put Quinn down last Thursday night without it and she went to sleep. Now, this is nothing new. Every once in a while Quinn will just go to sleep without the assistance of the pacifier. But the next night she absolutely will NOT settle down unless she has it! So I figured, ok small victory, but there is always tomorrow night... Well, Friday night came and... no pacifier. Hmmm, do I detect a pattern starting?
Kirch and I talked about it, and we decided that I would work with her thru this adjustment period. Kirch realizes that Quinn knows that she's got Daddy wrapped around her finger, and she is more likely to wear him down than she would me :-) So Saturday afternoon she went down for her nap without it. She didn't sleep nearly as long as she normally does, but she got some rest and I chalked it up to a big step in the right direction. Saturday night - no pacifier. Sunday afternoon...
Quinn went down for her nap. She slept for an hour and woke up. Then all hell broke loose. She still wanted to sleep, but she wanted the pacifier to get her back to sleep. We didn't give it to her and she was, well, we'll just leave it at mad... She cried. And she cried. And cried some more. This is all while we were doing everything we could to distract her. We took her outside, gave her snacks, milk, whatever we could do. After about 20 minutes of this, she finally settled down and we headed over to Mike and Rachel's for Dad Kircher's 70th birthday party. She was fine for the rest of the afternoon - hell, she was great!
So Sunday night comes - still no pacifier. Monday, the same, and then last night. Well, I had a commitment Downtown last night, so it was Kirch's turn to put her to bed. He was nervous - here we were closing in on a week with no pacifier and now HE had to calm her and put her to bed? Well, he did a great job! He rocked her and when she got fidgety, he put her in her crib and she immediately stood up, pointed to where we used to keep the pacifiers, and cried. He just said "No, no - it's night night time" and walked out the door. Hearing Quinn cry is like torture for Kirch, but he was determined to try to wait it out before going back into her room and rocking her some more. Well, lo and behold, by the time he walked down the hall and turned on the monitor in the living room, Quinn had quieted down and that was that! SUCCESS!!!
Now, granted, if and when Quinn wakes up in the middle of the night, it takes a bit more consoling to get her back to sleep. Of course it does - we used to go in there, pop the pacifier in her mouth and she'd go right back to snoozing. Now, she wants to be picked up and rocked. Hey, I'll take that! It's only about 2-3 minutes of rocking before we can lay her back down and she puts herself right back to sleep. I think we have crossed this very long bridge. It feels so good! We have put all of the pacifiers away and are looking forward to this pattern stretching into a habit. A GOOD habit!!!
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