Addiction is an Ugly Thing........

During Ella's 2-year pediatrican appointment last week, the pediatrician encouraged us to get rid of Ella's pacifier. This week she also transitioned rooms at school. She moved from the Turtle Room (ages 1- 2) to the Monkey Room (ages 2- 3). When kids transition to the Monkey Room, the pacifiers do not transition with them. On Tuesday, Ella napped in the Monkey Room without a paci, so we decided it was time to wean her from her beloved paci's cold turkey........ We have tried cutting off the nipples or slowly taking away in the past with no luck. We figured we either had to do this now before the baby gets here or wait until the baby is sleeping through the night. The latter could be months from now and her addiction would be even worse.

On Tuesday night, the Paci Fairy confiscated all of Ella's paci's. She was intrigued by the idea of the paci fairy flying into her room to take all of her paci's to give to the babies. This also meant that she is now a big girl and the Paci Fairy is going to leave her a toy in a few days and she will get to go to the circus next weekend (which we were already taking her to anyway). She was all on board, "Ella no need packeys any moh." We put her down at her normal 7:30pm bedtime. She asked for her "packey" one time and then went down without resistance. It took her awhile to fall asleep, but then she drifted off to slumber. Success! We were so excited.

Fast forward to 11:30pm. We were awakened by screams of, "PACKEY, PACKEY, PACKEY" over the intercom. Josh got up to try to soothe her, but had no luck. She had now worked her way up to a screaming frenzy, "PACKEY, PACKEY, PACKEY" and could not be comforted. Josh brought her down to our bed. She was kicking, screaming, and crying out of control. We figured this must be what it's like to clean up an addict. Our two-year old's paci addiction seems worse than the crack addicts I've seen on 'Intervention'. She finally exhausted herself after a half hour of crying and fell asleep.

1:00am - repeat the 11:30pm episode, although this time she was kicking and screaming so hard that Josh had to move out to the couch with her. She was screaming, kicking, crying, and also slapping herself in the face. He was unable to console her back to sleep. They moved back upstairs where Josh slept on the floor by her bed holding her hand so that she wouldn't scratch her eyes out. She finally passed out at around 2am.

At 5:00am, she decided that her bed wasn't good enough, so she moved down to the floor on (not by, on) Josh. She tossed and turned in her sleep until she woke up crying at 6:30am. Up for the day! The entire family is exhausted and Josh and I are wondering if this was a good idea.

Ella was exhausted at school and successfully napped again without her paci in the monkey room. When I picked Ella up from school, she was surprisingly optimistic. "Ella no need packey any moh. Packey fairy gib Ella's packeys to babeez. Ella go to circus." I figured she must have no recollection of the previous night.

Night #2: Ella goes down without the paci successfully. I think she is still exhausted from the previous night. At 11:00pm she woke up crying. Josh found her laying on the floor in her room by her "paci basket" (We had a basket full of paci's in her night stand so that she could get one when she lost hers in the night). She had her eyes closed and was crying in her sleep. He put her back to sleep and she slept soundly the rest of the night. Success!

Night #3: Ella goes down without the paci successfully. So far not a peep and we are crossing our fingers for another successful night! We are so proud of our little paci addict!