No Paci and Toddler Bed... OH MY!!!

As most of you know, Grace loves her pacifier. We have started to notice that it seems like she is getting more and more attached to it lately. She doesn't use it all of the time, just when she is sleeping, in the car, and sometimes in stores when she is in the buggy. I think she started using it in the car more when we were going longer distances because she would be tired/ or tired of the car and we would give it to her when she would start fussing. Lately, as soon as she gets in the car she thinks she HAS to have it and starts asking for it. Same for in the store.. she use to only get it when she was tired or tired of the buggy but now she wants it all the time when we go in to a store. So we knew that the longer we waited the harder it would be. Our Doctor had told us that she needed to get rid of it around 2 years old. She turns 2 next month so we decided the time is now! For a few weeks now we have been trying to avoid giving it to her and she seems to realize this and wants it even more. I tried telling her it is just for babies, etc. etc. I've heard of many stories of how people get their child off of the pacifier. Someone also told me that you can cut a hole in the tip of the pacifier and continue to give it to your child but the pacifier will flatten when they suck on it and they will get to where they won't like it and not want it any more.

So on Thursday we cut a hole in all of her pacifiers before her nap time. At first, she knew it was different but acting like she would still suck on it and be okay. After we put her down for a nap, she started screaming and crying. I had went in to check on her but she just didn't want to take a nap! The next thing I knew.. I heard a BOOM and she had climbed out of her crib! She bumped her chin a little but was otherwise okay. After trying multiple things to get her to sleep (Adam was working at this time) I decided to try to put her down again and BOOM she climbed out AGAIN. So needless to say, she never took a nap that day. She absolutely will not go to sleep in our bed either. We have tried to lay her down with us and she thinks it is 'fun' but won't go to sleep! So this was a FIRST. She has NEVER went all day without a nap. She actually did pretty good. When Adam got home from work, he got busy on converting her bed to a toddler bed. that night she was so tired from every thing.. she just crashed.

Same thing happened on Friday.. Grace was up a little earlier that morning and no nap on Friday but 'crashed' at bed time. She was up by 6:30am this morning which is early for her AND us! :) Thankfully today she did nap now that we both were at home. Hopefully, she will get use to all of this real soon.
Overall, we sure weren't expecting to try to get rid of the paci and convert her bed to a toddler bed all in the same day!! It has been a wild ending of a week!

As for the paci, she will still use it some now but it is just not the same to her and will not want it near as much. She will take it out and give it to us and say she doesn't want it some times. So we will see.. it will be a little slower process... which is JUST FINE! :)

All of this is bittersweet to us. It makes us realize that our baby is not really a 'baby' any more! Both of these things are two major 'milestones' that kind of happened at the same time. But now I see that there are positives to every stage and they are all fun. With every day.. I see more of this little girl's personality, mind, etc...


A 'broken' paci AND a 'new' bed...