Adios, Soosies

by Rumour Miller on April 16, 2011

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We have decided that this is the weekend that Quinn says goodbye to her soother (all 10 or more of them).  All of my girls have had a soother.  They start them off in the NICU with a soother and we continued to encourage it at home.  Neither Craig nor my self are fans of the soother much past the age of one.  Just a personal preference.  We have taken them cold turkey.

Piper adjusted after about a week without her soother.  Nap times were the worst time and for a few days, she went without one.  Bedtime with Piper was fine since she used us for soothing anyway.  She would sleep with us and snuggle with us, so the lack of soother at night did not really seem to bother her.  I do not recall the transition being too terribly bad for Davilyn either.  I know our bed time routine with her changed and we rocked longer.  She also took a bed time bottle a bit longer than Piper did and we let her continue until we were sure she was over the soother and then we gradually took it away.  Davilyn never took to sleeping with us (until now) and never required too much from us throughout the night either.

Last night was Quinn’s first bed time without her soother.  I knew it was going to be a bit rough.  She really loves her soother (maybe even more than her big sisters ever did).  She loves to have one in her mouth and hold one or more in her hands while she falls asleep.  Bed time with her has been a breeze.  She takes her bottle, puts in her soother and we lay her down.  Unless she is teething or sick, we don’t hear much from her.

So last night, I gave her a bottle and then rocked with her.  She cried and got mad and cried some more.  I tried laying her down and leaving the room but I just can’t let my babies cry it out.  So I just rocked with her until she got all of her frustrations out.  I gave her Raffi to hold and that helped her.  Then she settled into my arms and let sleep take over her little body.  She was exhausted.  I rocked her for a bit longer to make sure that she was asleep, then I laid her in her crib and left the room.  The bed time routine last night took us an hour.  I heard her cry out in the middle of the night, but it was brief and she fell back to sleep.  She woke this morning in good spirits. Night one was a success.

At nap time today, it was much the same.  I did not give her a bottle since she isn’t really taking bottles during the day anymore.  She was clearly tired but she cried and tried pushing me away.  I let her squirm and cry her frustrations away.  I held her tight and kept on rocking and shushing her.  Within 20 minutes she had settled down and she fell asleep.  I rocked her a bit longer than I needed to.  I wanted to sit in there with her and enjoy her little body and her chickadee cheeks.  Our time to do this will come to an end before we know it.  I had the opportunity today, to spend that extra time rocking her and I really couldn’t think of a better way to spend that extra time.

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{ 2 comments }

Kir April 18, 2011 at 11:34 am

oh you brave brave woman…I will not make either of them give up the nuk yet, I can’t put myself throught that yet. Seriously.
Jacob is exactly like her, he walks around with one in his mouth and then carries one or twirls it around his fingers, it’s his “thing”

let me know how it goes from here…I’ll be interested to see the progress. In the meantime I’ll keep beating myself up or not having them off the nuk yet. ;(
Kir recently posted..TRDC- David- Last Call

urban daddy April 18, 2011 at 2:26 pm

We tried so hard to get children #2 and #3 hooked on a soother so they would sleep… #2 was up every 2-3 hours for 10 months and #3 didn’t really start sleeping through the night until 14-15 months. Each child spit out the soother and glared at us when we have it to them.. All this after fighting to get #1 off his soother. Then one day he walked into our room, announced he was done with it, sropped it in the garbage and that was it!

Ahhhh, children. 🙂

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