Beds and Binkies

After all the crazy shook down with Ryan's speech evaluations we were told that the pacis had to go. Now, truth be told, we had planned on getting rid of pacis a long time ago. Like when they were one. And then again when they were 18 months. Once Lola was 6 months old and past the SIDS risk. And then when she started sleeping regularly we decided we'd just wait until the twins were 2. That came and went and we thought we'd just let them agree to give them away at some undecided point in the future.

My kids are the amazing sleeper (12 hours overnight, 2-4 hour naps daily), terrible eater variety. So we weren't about to mess with the one thing we had going for us. Except now we had to. So the night of his final evaluation we drove to a farm near our house and threw our pacis to the baby cows. You can tell Ryan was thrilled to be giving his away.

By default Lola had to give up her paci too, because the big kids definitely would not have understood why she got to keep hers but they couldn't keep theirs. The first night was horrific. Our kids have never put up a fight when it comes to going to sleep. We literally put them in bed, close the door and leave. Reese asked for her paci and we said we gave it to the baby cows and she was over it. Ryan, on the other hand, pitched a holy fit for 90 minutes. Lola, the no pun intended sleeper in this situation, cried for three hours and ended up sleeping on the boob most of the night. You're welcome for that visual.

For naps the next day, Reese again just needed a reminder about who we gave the pacis to. Ryan cried for 45 minutes. The baby was a hot mess. By bedtime that night Lola was the only one still putting up a fight. And just like that our paci days were over.

Driving to the field and tossing the pacis seemed a bit superfluous at the time, but it was the best thing we could have done. The kids will tell us, "I gave my paci to the cows, remember?" Reese has also decided that the baby horses are using her unwanted pacis now too.

Lola turned into a finger sucker, which we were afraid would happen. So this week we snuck the paci back to her at bedtime. It's been interesting hiding her pacifier from the twins. I feel like I'm playing a game of toddler roulette. But we've decided that it's easier to take away a pacifier than it is to cut off her fingers. So that's that.

This week we're in Nantucket and usually we travel with pack and plays, but I decided that I didn't want to have to buy or borrow a third PNP for the trip and I was too cheap to rent them on the island this week. So I made the executive decision to buy bed rails and pack those instead. (Lola, of course, has a PNP we brought from home.) I figured if things got really zoo-y we could always call the rental place and get a set of cribs.

Again, my kids just rolled with it and rocked it out completely. I have to say, we were both shocked. The first night I just had to lie with Reese and snuggle for a few minutes. We talked about going to the beach and building sandcastles and I told her that she just needed to get some sleep before we could go. She was content with that as a promise. Ryan couldn't have been happier to be in a big bed. No fussing at all.

And even though it is only a guard rail on a bed, they don't get out on their own. They ask us to help them down. It's like some sort of imaginary barrier for them, which is an unexpected added bonus.

You know, as parents we built up these bedtime routine things to be so much bigger than they were. I feel bad that we've sold our kids so short. Or maybe we're just really lucky that they're so agreeable. Either way, I am so proud of my big kids for being so freaking awesome.