Bye Bye Paci!

Gussi, Paci, Binky, Nuk. Whatever one calls the pacifier, if your child loves theirs, it's hard to rid them of it. Harder on the parents & caregivers probably. Ryan's loved his since the NICU days. He was so tiny the paci seemed bigger than him!

We've been wanting to ease Ryan out of using his paci for a while now and a few months back actually was pretty successful letting him have it only at naps and bedtime. Once his 2 year molars started coming in and his sensory issue of him wanting to put everything in his mouth started increasing, it was easy just to let him have his paci whenever he wanted. Heck, it was better in our eyes for him to have the paci in his mouth rather than an inedible object such as a puzzle piece. Now that his 2 year molars are all in, we've had several professionals (an OT, ST & just this weekend a Pediatric Dentist) tell us, it's best to get him away from sucking on the paci. The issue is that the sucking motion will make the front teeth to come forward and cause him to have "bucked teeth". I certainly don't want to be shelling out money for braces if I don't have too and while he may ultimately need braces, I want to do everything possible to avoid that expense. By the time he would need them, they will probably cost as much as car!

The past couple weeks we have been weening him down to only using the paci at naps and bedtime again. This seemed to work well most days. He would walk around the house sometimes and ask for it in his pitiful sad voice "gussi, where's gussi?" (For the record, I call it Paci, my mom & Ryan call it gussi). It's been quite funny because while we would try to hide the paci from him after he woke up, he would ultimately "find" another one. In reality, he has been stashing them in his little secret spots (like under the couch & in one of his buckets). Yes, there's no denying kids are smart! Last night after dinner, I was cooking some chicken to have later in the week and he comes in the kitchen with his gussi and shows it to me. I asked where he got it and then noticed the end of it had come off. Then I asked him where the end piece was and he ran into the den where Dean was sitting. Dean told me Ryan had bitten it off. I told Ryan the gussi was broken and it would need to be thrown away. So, we went to the kitchen trash can and I told him again that gussi was broken and he had to be thrown away and to give him a kiss goodbye, which he did and then I threw it away. To my surprise Ryan was fine with it. He went off to keep playing and watch his night time show on Sprout. I kept anticipating that he would ask for gussi but he didn't until it was time to go up for bed. We told him again that gussi was broken and went bye bye and he took it fine. We did our nightly routine of books and he went right to sleep, only waking up once during the night but went right back to sleep. This morning he woke up and said, "It's broken, gussi broken. Went bye bye." So, I don't think we could've planned it any better because at least he's aware of what happened. I'm still holding my breath though because we still have today's nap to deal with and then again tonight.