When to abandond ones principals??? (rant no2)

So, my dbg is just that, a little darling!, she's filled with energy and uses it up quickly, that means she gets very tired very soon and has no energy to eat or sit down for a story once she's hit bottom.

A few weeks ago we weened her off the pacifier (we call it dummy, so for future reference, dummy=pacifier) it went ok, it took her about a week to settle for her night time sleep without it and now she sleeps like a dream (most of the time) without it, the day naps never settled, she will scream and scream and scream so in the end I told my hubby that we'll have to give it to her, I nor her can take this any longer.

So now she'll fall asleep but wake up as soon as the dummy falls out of her mouth, I try to get her to suck her thumb but she likes to pat things and forgets to suck the thumb, though she still gets upset when it comes out and forgets that it was her thumb and she can easily put it back in again, she also is still struggling to get the dummy in properly, sometimes it works but most times it doesn't so I go in to her room over and over again, her sleep is interrupted and it turns out it's not a good enough nap.

Now she's also a bit wingy and the dummy helps calm her down, we have tried to hold it off, but her sad face just makes my insides shrink and I think, am I taking the dummy away for my sake or hers? It obviously bothers me to hear her whine and whinge, and part of me hopes that one day she'll start looking for it herself and I let her whine for while, though since she almost never finds it and puts it in her mouth herself I end up after having had her cry/whine/whinge for a while go over and do it for her....
I am worried that this bad habit is never ending, so this was me abandoning my principles, but I'm not sure to what good or bad

(my hubby reads this and looks at me, what happened to you? he says. I used to do this, as a nanny these things are so easy to deal with, no nonsense and it all works out great, maybe I should take a step back, stop letting cries bother me, enjoy the time we have while she's little and stop worrying?)

Bye Bye Binkies

A post by guest blogger Mama A

Little boy R , age 2 and 1/2, has two binkies, the bright yellow one and the bright blue one. He uses them to go to sleep, always in the same configuration - the bright blue one in his mouth and the bright yellow one in his hand, touching his face.  He loves them.

For a couple months we have been talking about giving away the binkies. We talked about putting them in a box and putting the box in the trash. I gave him a box. He put the binkies in it, but took them out shortly after. He would talk about putting the binkies in the box, putting the box in the garbage, and then the garbage man would take the binkies away. He would talk about doing it tomorrow. But he was never ready to do it. 

Recently I upped the ante by telling R he could have a backpack after he gave away his binkies. We found this adorable school backpack, grey with an orange monster on it.

Then I went online and read how one mom had her toddler give the binkeys to a fireman, so the fireman could "give them to sad little babies to make them happy." R was all over this idea. The giving-away-binkies chatter increased to a level where I actually called Hanna Anderson and put an orange monster backpack on hold. (We also went to Target and tried on every backpack, and had a meltdown when I didn't trust his pledge to give away the binkies after we got the backpack.)

Thursday morning R seemed ready. We made cookies for the firemen. We put the binkies in the box. We took the above picture of R with his binkies in the box. (You can kind of see where he had the box in his mouth.) We talked about the backpack. R asked me to pretend to be the backpack, waiting for him in the store: "Where is that R? Is R coming to take me home? I can't wait until I am R's backpack."

We drove to the fire station. When the fireman let us in, R gave him the cookies, and I said, "Hi - do you have kids?" He didn't, but I managed to somewhat explain the ulterior motive of our visit and why he might receive a Fred Meyer jewelry box from the toddler. After the tour, I asked R if he wanted to give the binkies to the fireman. He did. R handed the binky box to the fireman, who put it in his pocket and helped my toddler climb into the engine driver's seat. I almost choked up - so easy.

"And I do what with this?" the fireman asked me, kindly. "Whatever you want," I said quietly, gesturing a nonchalant toss. Slowly and louder I said, "You give them to little babies who are sad, so they can be happy."

R was ecstatic to finally get the backpack. Every mom in the store got the story and was appropriately sympathetic and charmed by my child. The backpack is way too big for a two-year-old.

That evening, R practiced putting on the backpack until he could do it all by himself. He put a lego guy in the backpack. He practiced opening and closing the little pocket and the big pocket. He wore the backpack all around the house and took it to bed.  But he couldn't get to sleep. "I feel sad, I miss my binkies." "I want to go to the fire station and get my binkies back from the fireman." Sobbing, "I need my binkies."

For three days he cried at night about missing his binkies. Now several days have passed with no binky tears, but I'm afraid we might lose the afternoon nap altogether.