Today we celebrated Erin's 3rd birthday, and that means that tonight she has to give her wobbies (pacifiers) back to the Wobbie Fairy. Then the WF will leave her a present! I came up with this in desperation to break her wobbie addiction. We've been talking about it for weeks.

Yesterday she decorated a gift bag to leave her wobbies in, and for the WF to leave her present in. We ran her little legs off today and got her all tired out. About 8:30 we started making sure we had all the wobbies in the bag. It suddenly dawned on her that the WF was going to TAKE AWAY her beloved wobbies! I think she had in mind that the WF would leave her a present AND she would get to keep the wobbies. Once this info sank in, the tears began.

I was trying to comfort her, telling her the WF would take them to new little babies who really needed them, and she was a big girl now, etc. She was sobbing inconsolably. I tried to wipe the tears off her face, and she pushed me away and said, "Mommy, don't wipe off my cryings!"

When it got to be bedtime, she was so tired from playing (and crying) that she fell asleep on my bed waiting for me to put on my pj's. I carried her off to her own bed and stayed with her a few minutes until she settled down. I haven't heard a peep out of her since! I figured we'd be up all night with her. I'm curious to see how it goes from here.

The WF is leaving her two pairs of earrings, one of diamond studs and one of little gold hearts, along with a nice note about the baby who's getting the wobbies. I hope this all goes OK. I've been worried that she would cry for a week, at least!

Wish us luck!

so your going with the payola approach lol I hope this works I thinks its a great idea, even having her decorate the bag and all, good luck in this adventure, I think she may surprise you, after you bribe her lol good luck I mean it

Wow, that's a really creative way to get rid of the wobbies!

I had a little boy who wouldn't pee on the potty and didn't care if his diaper was soggy. On his 3rd b-day I got him hyped up about being such a "big boy" and that big boys peed on the potty. It actually worked!

Good luck to you and the WF tonight! Let us know how it goes!

Good luck Patty! Olivia turned 3 August 18th, while having a binky was never an issue for her it took awhile to give up the bottle and now potty training is going nowhere! LOL I start work Monday and my mom is keeping her so maybe she can potty train her! The fairy was a good idea though, I had Olivia decorate her potty with stickers...to no avail she still won't use it and I put bath colors in it so when she peed it would turn pretty colors, nope now she wants one before she will sit down and she just takes it out and plays with it!

But I wonder if a compromise would be easier for her?

You could make a "deal"...only use the pacifier at home, or
at night? Then slowly enlarge the places where she no longer uses it?

Small kids are not easy to reason with. And anything affecting a comfy item really affects them. When my son was 4 and was going to have surgery on his adenoids and ears.. the hospital allowed the kids to bring their comfy thing to the surgery! It was taken away when the sedative was administered and given back in recovery.

We were lucky with pacifiers...my son spit them out at about 3 months. He was a preemie and the hospital got him started on a pacifier there. We didn't know this, and they didn't send it home. Little did I know it had to be a certain type...the kind with a ball on the end. I recall my poor husband driving all over buying one of every type to get my 4.5 lb newly home infant to accept!

My son's comfy object was "tiny pillow"...a small Winnie the Pooh thing I received at a shower. It was very small, just enough to hug!

Neither of mine ever used a binky. My firstborn started biting the nipples off his bottles at 14 mos when he got all 4 of his front teeth at the same time, so the bottles had to go.

I told him when you can eat your bottles, you're too big for them. I had him round them all up and throw them in the trash, then we went shopping for sippy cups - ones with cars on them. He thought they were TOO cool!



With dd is was tougher to get rid of the bottles. She'd get sick and *need* her baba. We went with the weaning off approach and she was over bottles by 2.5.

Oddly, the grandbaby got her own self off binkies. She hid them all like pirate treasure and we still don't know where they are!



She ditched the bottle as soon as there was a sippy cup in the house and never looked back (she was about 1.5).

I say, like potty training, they let you know when they're ready. Apples fall off the tree when they're ripe.

Well? How did it go?

Here is an article I found at WebMD that has ideas for weaning kids off their pacificiers: http://blogs.webmd.com/all-ears/2006...-and-ugly.html (Scroll to the bottom of article)

msarkie, what a cute and creative thing to do. When my daughter was that age we told her Santa needed to pick up her binkys and deliver them to other babies for Christmas. We left them by the milk and cookies and it worked like a charm.

She talked about leaving them for Santa for a short time after that but never asked for them back. I hope all went well at your house too.

Thanks for bringing back that memory, my dd will be 18 next month...Sue

Oh my, I almost forgot...she called her pacifiers fa-fa's not binkys. Wow, I can't believe I forgot that.

MSarkie inquiry minds want to know, how did the wobbie fairy go?

My nephew called his pacifiers "Pow-pows". He always carried two: one in his mouth and the other he held under his nose.

None of my 4 kids ever wanted a binkie and none sucked their thumbs. No wonder they weren't good sleepers!