Bye Bye Binky

I’ve decided it’s time for Harper to give up the binky. I noticed that his two front teeth are looking a little protruded and I don’t want those binky’s to mess up that beautiful smile.

A couple of days ago after nap I showed him that one of his binky’s had broken. (I cut the tip of it off so that it wouldn’t work anymore. A tip I learned from a neighbor.) He kind of laughed about it, and then I told him we needed to throw it away because it was broken. He said “Ok, you throw it away”, so I did. He didn’t mind too much because he still had another one he could use. (He’s only using them for nap and bed time and that’s been the case for a long while now. He never gets it for any other reason.)

Today, while I was rocking him in his chair before nap, I told him it looked like the binky he had in his mouth was nearly broken. He pulled it out of his mouth and looked at it and said “it’s not broken yet”, and put it right back in. I told him once it broke we’d have to throw it away, and then left it at that. A few minutes into our story he pulled his binky out and just stared at it. I asked him if his binky was broken and he just put it back in without answering. He did that a couple times while I was reading to him, and I couldn’t help but notice the concern on his face.

I feel bad having to break him of a habit that I ultimately developed for him. When he was newborn he just seemed to really need it, and was very happy to have it. When we were having all the problems with nursing it was a lifesaver.

I was telling my mom the other day that although I know it’s time for him to give it up I’d really be happy to let him keep it. I feel like it’s one of the last things tying him to his infancy. Yes, he’s still in diapers and still loves his blankets, but it’s still really hard for me to see him give up one more element of babyhood. I’m just not interested in growing these kids up any faster than they have to…

Wish me luck.