Well, the little man has officially been without his "pie-pie" (what he calls his paci.... no idea how he came up with the name since we never once referred to it as a pie pie) for the past 3 and a half days! It's crazy how the whole "weaning" process came about because it certainly wasn't in our plans... at least not yet.
The story begins Saturday morning. After having our family pictures made in Covington, we came home and packed really fast so we could head to Barnesville to have lunch with Terrell's parents and spend the weekend in the hometown. I knew we were rushing as we packed, but I mentally went down my checklist of must haves: make-up, hair dryer, church clothes, etc. (Notice everything on my mental checklist related to me.) Several miles down Highway 36, we discovered that we left both paci's at home. Oh no. At that point it was too late to turn back and I decided we could always buy him one anyway so it wasn't that big of a deal. Terrell's mom actually found a Gerber "Nuk" paci at Ingles and we decided we'd give that a try since we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to duplicate his Avent brand paci that he was used to taking.
The first test came at naptime. He was already sort of wound up/excited (which typically happens when we arrive in Barnesville and he sees his grandparents, so no shocker there) so I knew it would take him a while to settle down for a nap. He first requested his pie-pie once we were about to start reading a few books. I offered him the Gerber paci and he took a look at it, felt of it, and took a quick sample in his mouth before promptly removing it and frowning at it. From that point forward as we prepared for his nap, he continued to ask for his paci but was satisfied to hold the new one each time I told him that was all I had to offer. To make a long story short, he didn't take a nap that afternoon, however, he also didn't scream his head off begging for his pie-pie the entire time either. I considered this a small success and Terrell and I held our breath until bedtime. Just kidding. Although Terrell was definitely sweating a little.
When bedtime arrived, we went through our normal routine and when he asked for his pie-pie I gave him the new one and he would hold onto it or lay it down where he could see it while we read our books and sang our songs. When I laid him down in the crib he put the new paci on his pillow and actually let me leave the room without crying. That night he cried out a couple of times, but I only had to go in and hold him once. Again, the next morning we considered our first night without a paci a success.
Sunday afternoon we spent with my parents and sister and Garrison once again refused a nap. I guess he thought he would most definitely miss something if he let himself fall asleep even for a minute. But once again, he was talking and playing just about the entire time he was in his crib instead of screaming and crying... so things could have been worse, therefore it was another teeny tiny success.
Sunday night after arriving home we prepared for our first true challenge. We knew he would expect things to be back to normal at home and he would certainly expect his good old normal pie-pie. It did take him longer to fall asleep Sunday night and I did have to stay in his room with him for several minutes after laying him down, but thankfully we didn't have a major meltdown. He woke up once during the night and I had to go in and hold him for a few minutes, but other than that the night went great.
Monday afternoon I stayed in the room with him just until he dozed off and he took a nice long nap. Last night we had a little trouble getting him settled but he eventually got comfortable with the new Gerber paci in the crib with him (not in his mouth) and went to sleep and slept all night. Yay! So far, I am very pleased with how well things are going, especially since we had no intentions of taking the paci away just yet. I was actually thinking about staging a way to give Garrison's paci's to Shannon at some point since I've heard of people doing that with their toddlers. God had another, simpler plan in mind though and we couldn't have planned it better! We know we're not out of the woods yet, but right now it looks like my little man is done with the pie-pie and has taken another step in the big boy direction!
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