I am happy and proud to say that Cavan has been binkie free for almost 2 weeks now! It was completely not planned, but the tip of his last one was ready to fall off, so rather than deal with the worry of him biting it off and choking in his sleep, I told him it was broken and had to go to the Binkie Fairy. He didn't like that explanation so I ripped the tip completely off and gave it to him. He tried to put it in his mouth and then threw it and told me it was broke. Well, ok, bye bye binkie then!
All was fine during the day, he really didn't seem to miss it all that much and really only asked for it a handful of times. Night time was a different story. For 18 months this was his nightime soother... or so we thought (but I'll get back to that in a minute). He had a really hard time the first few nights. He fought us on going in his crib and when he would wake in the middle of the night, he was almost impossible to comfort. I honestly contemplated giving in and getting him a new one, but held off. He was in our bed every night and kept us up for most of it.
Then, all of a sudden, it started to get better. He started going to bed a little easier. Then he stopped waking in the night. Let me make a note in here that my son has slept entirely through the night about 5 times in his life prior to this. Now for the last week he has slept through the night every night!
So was the binkie the source of his bad sleeping habits? I'm going to go ahead and say yes based on my own observations with him.
Kaylie, on the other hand, well she's not happy unless she has all 4 of her binkies in sight or hand at all times. We've got a long road ahead of us with her, but the "Binkie interrupts sleep habits" theory I have for Cavan, SO not the case with Kaylie. She has always been an amazing sleeper because of her binkie.
