Taking on the fingers!

When Jake and Ashley needed to learn to ride their bikes without training wheels I had two options. A, do it separately, one at a time. Or B, rip the band-aid off and hack them out together. I opted for option A. We removed their training wheels on the same night and I started running.  I ran and ran with them to and from school for at least three weeks. Poor Luke got suckered into pushing the stroller each way while I did my best to keep the kids on wheels upright and away from cars.  Thankfully, they both learned and we all came out alive. And that phase, for them, is over with forever.

This month I'm opting for the same approach but for a different challenge: the fingers. Ashley has been a finger sucker since the womb. We know that because, as some may remember, she was born with her two bottom teeth and they were already a little bit crooked, at the angle her finger goes in at! So that's been a part of who she is her whole life! And try as we might over the years to stop it, we have landed in the orthodontic chair. This Thursday she is getting the dreaded apparatus. The one with the pokey things that make it so she has to stop.

There's been some build-up to Thursday though as we've gone in the last two weeks to have spacers put between her molars. Her teeth have been sore and that has gotten her mentally adjusting to this whole idea of orthodontic work. She's a little nervous, but ready to take it on.

So since Ashley is quitting cold turkey in two nights I figured I may as well get Claire to stop too! Starting two Thursdays ago (which was the first day of Ashley's spacers) baba went bye-bye. Claire asked about it for a few days but I told her babas are for the babies. And it really hasn't been an issue (she's nearly two for pete's sake!). I'm pretty sure someone else (me/daddy) was more attached to the bottle than she was, although she is our precious infant!!!

The blankie though - that's the finger sucking trigger - and I knew it would be more painful. Surprisingly, after I cut it (into a thin strip!) and started leaving it in her bed whenever she was awake, I noticed NO finger sucking during the day. If she doesn't have blankie she doesn't suck. Who knew?!  So like a little camel inching my nose into her tent, I've made blankie less and less apart of her life. And today - blankie went bye-bye with daddy on the airplane. Can you believe it?

It's actually up on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, but only I know that. Claire went to nap and to bed tonight NO blankie and NO bottle. And I'm hoping NO fingers (hard to tell!). She cried for a while at bedtime which was sad, but I went in to rock her and sing to her a second time and she went quietly like a good girl after that.  I need to borrow a video monitor to know for sure what she's doing when she sleeps, but I am hoping she is not sucking. If she is, I'm afraid the yucky tasting stuff will have to go on...

So soon Ashley will be going through her withdrawals and I may have some longer nights ahead of me. But we will be hacking it out. And a month from now I hope finger sucking will be a thing of the past for this family!!  Keep us in your prayers! :)