The Binky Fairy

The first and last binky:  the mute button. Here she is at 2 months old with the same binky we put out for the binky fairy over 3 years later.

 One exciting milestone that (unfortunately) happened during Jimmy and Marian's visit in the middle of May was the Binky Fairy's visit to our house. It started when I got a phone call from Valerie's school on Friday afternoon. She had chewed through her binky (pacifier) at school and they wanted me to send in a new one. For a pretty long time she had only been allowed to have a binky during naps and at night, and at almost 3.5, I knew it was getting to be time to say goodbye to the binky for good, but I wasn't in a huge hurry, because the binky was partially responsible for Valerie being a wonderful sleeper and the easiest child in the world to put to bed. In fact she would often put herself down for a nap or to bed because she just wanted her binky time.

But, all good things must come to an end, and for us the chewing of the binky brought on the end. We had several binkies over the years for her, but we often lost them traveling, and in May we were down to just two - one at home and one at school. I refused to buy more of them with her nearing 3.5 and knowing we would be pulling the plug, so to speak, soon enough. She chewed completely through the one at school and the tip came off, which is a huge choking hazard, and her binky at home was also mostly chewed through, but hanging on by a thread. I knew the chewing through of the school binky was our signal to say goodbye to the binky for good.

It was terrible timing to make a huge change to our routine with our friends visiting for the weekend, but I felt we had no choice to delay it any longer. The binky was just not safe and it had to go. I googled some ideas for how to get rid of the pacifier and decided to go with the Binky Fairy approach, which I think turned out to be very successful for us. I bought a light-up magic wand, some loose glitter, and some candy at the drugstore, and I started on Friday by telling Valerie the legend of the Binky Fairy, who would be coming to our house on Saturday night, taking the binky, and replacing it with candy and a toy, similar to the way the Tooth Fairy takes a lost tooth and leaves money in its place. She had one last night on Friday with the binky and Saturday night she would bid it farewell and place it out on the front step for the Binky Fairy.

As expected, she was enchanted by the idea of the Binky Fairy and couldn't wait to leave her binky out. She sweetly told her binky good-bye on Saturday night and put it out on the front step, and went to bed.

Within a minute or so of going to bed, she began to cry that she wanted her binky. Okay. So she didn't quite grasp the concept that binky was GONE for good. She cried for a while and we laid down with her for a while until she finally fell asleep. The transition was not as easy as I had hoped. In the morning she got to go outside and find the magic wand and candy the Binky Fairy left for her - and glitter! There was glitter where the Binky Fairy had been! So magical. She asked lots of questions and was very excited about her new wand.

The next night, she got to take her new wand to bed, which was cool, but she still didn't totally understand binky being gone for good, and she cried and cried and took a long time to fall asleep. This went on for the next couple of nights and after about 4 nights she started to understand and went to sleep more easily. They were a scary four nights for us as we wondered if we had reached the permanent end of our easy-to-sleep child! Rich was NOT happy about my hard stance on the end of the binky but we persevered and all was well in the end. Valerie adjusted and now she doesn't ask for her binky anymore. Her requests got less and less frequent as the weeks and months went by, and they seem to have finally stopped completely.

Sometimes I wonder if we should have let her keep it longer until she was really fine with giving it up, but I remind myself that it was just not safe for her to have a binky anymore since she would chew right through them. We did the right thing, and it was a bit painful, but we made it through and our great sleeper is still a wonderful sleeper, although she never puts herself down for a nap anymore like she did. Naps on the weekends are rare now, but the upside is that we don't have to plan around naptime anymore, which is quite nice. She gets plenty of quiet time watching TV shows instead... I know, bad parenting alert. She definitely gets too much screen time, but.... oh well. She loves her shows and it doesn't seem to be hindering her development at all. I'm so proud of my big girl, getting more grown up and articulate and sweet by the day.