Bye bye doo doo!

Connor was sick last week with a stomach flu and then croup. Normally, after he's been sick I replace his soothers. It was time anyway, they were all chewed up (he bites holes into them)
But this time, rather than replace them I took this opportunity to wean him off of them. Okay, so wean is a generous word. I took them away.

Emily was only a year when we took her soothers and it didn't faze her a bit. But though Connor only had them for bedtime he was a serious junkie, one in the mouth and one in the hand all night long. I really dreaded the time when he had to give them up.

I brought him and his soothers to the kitchen. I told him his soothers were dirty and he needed to throw them out. Connor is a visual kid. If I just threw them out on my own he'd be searching for them. He had to see them go. He was resistant though, he wouldn't throw them out so I took them, told him again that they were dirty and yucky and threw them out. I then took the garbage bag to the garbage can outside.

And there's my little boy, face mashed up against the screen door, crying and calling out "Doo doo. Doo doo!"
We had a cuddle and got distracted by Pooh Bear and cookies. (yeah, cookies at 8 am - good parenting I know!)

So naptime rolled around. He was excited to go for his nap. It was time for doo doo! Needless to say, there were some tears but within about 5 minutes he was asleep. However, my 3 hour sleeper turned into a 1.5 hour sleeper and he woke in hysterics. He was a bear for the next three hours.

I was not feeling confident going into bedtime last night. He'd not napped well. He was cranky. I gave him his lovey and he made his rounds of goodnight kisses. As we're walking down the hall he starts calling for his doo doo. I told him, "No, your doo doo is dirty, yucky. It's in the garbage." He says "deedee (dirty) yuck!" I said "That's right, dirty"
My little boy looked right at me and said (with the most pathetic voice, you could hear it wavering) "All keen" (all clean)

I managed to get him into bed with no tears (from either of us). And much to my surprise, he played for a bit and then went to sleep, without a fuss.
And more importantly, he slept all night and woke up this morning in a perfectly wonderful mood.

It just goes to show that the work up to little events like this is often worse than the event itself. And I'm happy to say, my boy is pacifier free.
Of course, today is a daycare day and I have a 12 month old who uses the same soothers he did. So I might be doing my happy dance a bit prematurely.

We shall see.