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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

So Long, Sweet Soother

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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