It started out three years ago with everything I read
telling me that if I was planning to breastfeed I should absolutely not give a
pacifier to my new baby girl as it could cause “nipple confusion”. Now, I don’t
know what anyone else’s nipples look like but I was pretty certain there was no
mistaking mine for the little newborn Nuk “pacies” that I had laying around
from free samples I’d received in the mail and baby stores, but I had had a
baby for all of two days so what the hell did I know.
Let’s move ahead 3 weeks to my little bottomless pit nursing
to the point where I felt like a dairy factory and that if I didn’t get an hour
with my bra being closed and my shirt down I thought I was going to lose it and
tell everyone I knew to buy stock in Similac. In a moment of absolute
desperation I dug out one of my samples and gave it to her. It was an instant
miracle. She took to it immediately and slept soundly for hours. Hours!! From
that moment forward I’m not sure who loved the pacifier more, Kennedy or me,
but in any case, we were sold (and in case you were dying to know, there was no
confusion between nipples. Imagine that!). Throughout our love affair with the
pacifier we may have changed brands and how many we were working with at a
time, two being a favorite for nap and bedtimes, but our relationship stayed
strong and unwavering. We were hooked. Literally, right to the front of
whatever she was wearing; the pacifier and security strap quickly became a
wardrobe staple.
Flash forward through the years and I’m pregnant with baby
number 2 and telling everyone I absolutely would not take her pacifier away as
she was getting the boot from her crib and baby nursery, while finishing up
toilet training and sleeping in a big-girl bed; too many big changes. For me
too. We battled with disapproving family members clucking about how we should
take it away soon or she was going to need braces though we were assured by our
pediatrician and pediatric dentist that as long as we got rid of it by three
there was less of a risk for braces than if it continued past then. As a
thumb-sucker until the age of about ten, I really viewed it as a good thing
that she preferred a pacifier to a finger. I mean you can take a pacifier away
eventually but fingers are there for the long run so….
When Jack died we were all a mess. Sean and I trying to reconcile this
unimaginable loss and trying to explain to a two and a half year old that her
baby brother wasn’t going to be coming home, not ever, the thought of trying to
wean her off of the only comfort she could find was out of the question. So for
the last five months I was of the mindset that if she needed braces she needed them;
who really gives a shit. I wasn’t going to take away one more thing from her. Her
being content was a small comfort to us and we’d take what we could get.
We did decide that as she was losing her pacifiers, we were
not going to replace them. It made Kennedy a bit more mindful of where she was
leaving them (I convinced myself we were teaching responsibility. To a three
year old.) She was only allowed to use
them in bed or long car rides. We were patting ourselves on the back for
standing strong even when this last month brought us down to one solitary paci.
Last weekend I was on an overnight getaway with a girlfriend
and when I gave a call home the next morning to check in and see how things
were going my Sean informed me Kennedy slept through the night without the
pacifier! In all actuality they couldn’t find it and she begged him to go buy a
new one, but either way she made it. When I returned home I brought her a small
surprise and told her how proud I was. She started to whine a little bit at
night that she “needed” it. We made a deal that if she could be a big girl and
make it a whole week with not paci we could go to the toy store and pick
something out. She got all jazzed up and went to bed without much fuss.
Well, that made one of us.
As I lay down to sleep I literally broke down into
hysterics. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like I had left my baby girl for one
night and came home to a big girl. I officially had no baby. As I sobbed into
my pillow I started to realize that I might have been allowing her to hold on
the pacifier more for me than for her. If Jack had lived we were planning to
“give” all of the paci’s to him as a ceremonious way of getting Kennedy to give
them up. I suppose my fear has been, without him, once she was done with them it
would feel like losing a baby all over again and I didn’t think I could bear any
more heartache.
We all stuck with our deal and made it through the
week. There were lots of tears, pouting,
and whining but that all comes with the territory of being three. Sunday came and we were off the to store
bright and early for the big reward. She
picked out a tiny plastic bear cub. That’s
it. Talk about anticlimactic. I practically dragged the kid through the
store and luckily we found something a tad cooler than baby bear...princess walkie-talkies.
“Mommy, come in Mommy.
I’m big now”
So I guess rather than looking for ways to keep her a baby,
I need to embrace the fact that, despite all the change she has been through
these last months, she doesn’t need a pacifier to bring her comfort anymore. But,
if I’m being honest, I may have to go make a Target run and buy one for myself.
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