Bye Bye Binkie

About a month ago we said goodbye to Lily's binkie.  She seemed to be getting a little old for the binkie, but we really needed it for the move from Baltimore and to Norway to stay sane, keep her calm, and adjust with the time change. But once that was passed we got really tired of waking up several times a night to give her the binkie so she could fall back asleep. I wanted her over it before the baby came. (Sidenote: I just found out that Norwegians say to take the binkie away before age 3, so most people here are quite surprised to hear that I already took the binkie away. Ahead of the curve here, but a little behind what most "American experts" say in America) To be honest, Barrett and I were both really nervous to take the binkie away. She only used it to sleep and she was instantly calm when we gave it to her. And she's been a fairly good sleeper. But after I got past my initial pregnancy sickness and felt well one morning, I decided that was the day. I told her over and over in the morning that we were going to sleep without the binkie and to say goodbye to the binkie. Here is the video of her saying goodbye to it.

After I had her throw it away in the garbage. (Sorry for the gross garbage picture)

 The first few days were really sad! It was almost panic for her that she didn't have it when it was time to go to sleep. She was fine remembering it was in the garbage when it wasn't time to go to sleep. But she cried less and less each time she slept and I would praise and often reward her for not sleeping with it. At the beginning when I opened the door she would say "Lily slept without binkie. Bye bye binkie. Binkie in garbage." We originally started out with just baby in the crib to comfort her, and then elephant, kitty kat, and sippy were all added, sometimes with additional blankets. 

But this led to continual playing and taking FOREVER to fall asleep at nap and bedtime. Now we're back down to just baby (plus quiet music) and it's still a little struggle with how long it takes her to get to sleep at bedtime. However, we rarely rarely get up with her during the night anymore. Yay for uninterrupted sleep! (well besides getting up to go to the bathroom all the time :))

When I mentioned to people here that I had taken Lily's binkie away they always suggested we visit the binkie tree, which is really close to here. I also recently heard of quite a few other places and tales that go along with the places to help facilitate saying goodbye to a child's binkie. I think it's such a fun Norwegian tradition to help children adjust to the idea of no longer using their binkie rather than it just being gone one day. It took several weeks to make the trip to the binkie tree, but my landlady took me there. Here are quite a few pictures.

Marcela brought her camera along and was so nice to take more pictures for me. 

I look so happy to be tying that binkie to the tree, ha ha.

 I was a little worried about pulling the binkie out that had just been sitting in the diaper bag and Lily wanting it, but she didn't even care. I don't think she even realized it was her old binkie. So not too much emotion regarding the tree, which was good. Here are the kids watching me tie it.

Now Lily also associates binkie with "tree" as well as "garbage" and "bye bye",  ha ha. We got her a baby for her birthday, which has a binkie, so she will still sometimes ask where Lily's binkie is and then proceed with what happened to her binkie. But no more sadness or attachment to it. Yay! One thing down before the baby comes. Now if we can also master a big girl bed and potty training?? We'll see.