Operation no more paci...

I thought, a few months back, that I'd be "tough mommy" and after the first of the year we were going to stop giving Lauren her paci. Turns out if it weren't for Sam she'd still have them...
We decided that when she turned 18 months and after our trip to Vegas we'd do it. It seemed that every weekend we wanted to though, there was always something interfering... having people over at night, Auntie watching her, staying over at either grandparent's home... so we decided to end it on a Wednesday (when I'd be home for 2 days). Lauren only used her paci's for naps and bedtime anyway but they were definitely a way to sooth her to sleep. It was something we wanted to do far enough in advance of the baby being born and she was showing some signs of it being time. Recently she started chewing on them and also chewing on her sippy cup's which have a soft spout. We figured that it would be hard to do it now but harder if we waited until she was older and able to communicate with us more.

The first 3 days were the hardest... first nap she talked for over an hour and started crying, as soon as I picked her up she fell asleep within 2 minutes on me. I layed her in her crib, she slept for an hour, woke up crying, then slept another 30 minutes and cried until we got her. Next day's nap was harder - she cried the first 30 minutes, fell asleep, woke up 1 hour later crying (hard) and then fell asleep on me for another hour in the rocker. On Friday she didn't nap at all... I was starting to get really discouraged and wanted to just give in. My reasoning... "I've destroyed Lauren's great sleeping habits", "she's still little - and there's really no harm anyway", "maybe it will be easier once I'm able to reason with her"... Sam had to knock some sense into me and bring me back to the reason's we were doing this. We know she established a good schedule and she'll get back there. The past few days have been better and nighttime is no different from before other than it taking her a little longer to fall asleep.

Part of me finds it's hard because I feel it's one of those last few things that keeps her "little" in my eyes. It's another step towards growing up. I'm hoping that in the next 2 months she'll forget about her paci's and hopefully once the baby comes her sleep (especially naps) will be back on track. It's been hard... but I think it would be harder if we waited.