Bye Bye Binki

Ever since Liam turned two we've casually talked about getting rid of his binki. But it just never came to the point of actually doing it. We were traveling to Utah for Christmas & leaving him with Grandma Shaw for a week while we went to Hawaii. I was not about to take his binki away before that. Uh uh nope. Not going to happen. Then there were little weekend trips or getting sick that we new would help comfort him or help him sleep better if he had it. And okay, I'll be honest, I didn't really want to take it away. Seeing Liam with the binki in his mouth was proof that he was still my baby. This momma was kind of having a hard time with the idea. Dad on the other hand started getting more adamant about it for ortho & speech purposes. I could no longer put this off & knew it was time to say goodbye to the binki. So the question is, what approach should I take? I've heard sob stories about parents cutting the nipple off of the binki & causing the poor kid trauma. I've heard of the whole send them up to heaven to the angel babies on balloons. Then there was the slowly let them disappear route. But then I fell across the blog post on Heidi Powell's blog click here that showed how she helped her son get rid of his binki's. I loved this idea! 

So one random day I decided to go for it. I talked to Liam about him being a big boy now & not needing to use his binki's anymore at bedtime. I asked him if he wanted to use his binki's to buy himself a toy. He was immediately on board! I was still nervous that when it came time to hand over the binki's to the cashier that that was when we'd encounter an issue. Oh well. Let's roll with it.

 We collected all his binki's in a baggie & this kid was ready. We decided to hit up the real toy store to find the perfect gift for this big kid.

I know he looks kind of upset in this picture, but he wasn't. He was throwing down some ninja poses & saying, "Let's do this!". 

We spent a good chunk of time walking around the store looking at EVERYTHING! Of course he really wanted one of those kid size cars. I text Doug to tell him that's what Liam wanted to buy & he replied, "Sure, if those binki's are made of gold." Haha! Of course I wasn't really going to let him get one.  The choices came down to either Mickey Mouse & Friends figurines or the Minion's Fart Gun. I bet you can guess what his final decision was...

Yep. The Fart Gun. Goes to show I'm a mom of boys because it totally didn't bother me one bit. Yes, I knew after hearing it non stop after bringing it home it would get old, but it's not as bad as those ball popping push toys. :) Liam did great! I was so proud of him. He didn't hesitate at all to give those binki's up. This was a fabulous method to use. And as a follow up, he only asked for it once the next day & after I reminded him about buying his toy he was cool with it. Hasn't asked for it since & is still sleeping like a champ. Phew. Why do I worry so much about changes? I'm having the same hold up if not more about the next thing to conquer.....potty training. But maybe it'll be like this was & it'll go smoothly? *Sigh*