The damage has been done, I suppose, and going back now on the decision would not make anything better, it would only make it worse. I know that. But, oh! How I wish I could go back 2 years and 9 months and have gotten rid of it then or at least I would have dragged my butt out of bed at 2:00 am to soothe my child instead of shoving the cursed binkie back in her mouth. I would have taught her how to soothe herself instead of relying on that binkie to do it for her. However, I can not and now we suffer.
Emily has been without her binky for about a month now. She says, "I a big girl, Mama. Big girls don't have binkies." She plays, she goes about her day, she doesn't think of them. We don't lose them. They don't get dropped in the dirt. We can understand what she's saying. Then it's bed time and she goes to sleep fine and mostly she'll sleep all night without a peep. But there are those nights.
Oh those nights.
She wakes and there is wailing and thrashing and gnashing of teeth and she will not be consoled. She does not want to be held, she does not need a drink, she does not care to have her diaper changed. She just cries and cries and cries. She buries her head in her pillow and just wails for 20 minutes or more. Perhaps she's grieving? Perhaps late at night she remembers her beloved and she is overcome with longing she does not know how manage.
It will end, right? At some point it will end. But until then, what do we do? How do we help?
1 comment:
Don't beat yourself up. I just read that the American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommends giving babies a binky at naptime and bedtime because it reduces the risk of SIDS- so you were doing something GOOD for her, even if it's making you crazy now. She'll figure out how to soothe herself back to sleep in a few weeks, probably. Not that that helps you now, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Just maybe give everyone in the house earplugs in the meantime.
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