The Soother Saga

I'll admit it. I'm one of those moms who let's her 3 year old use a soother in bed. Or at least I was until last week. Go ahead...judge me if you want.

With Will, we worked on him gradually and evenutally, by the time he was 3 1/2, he willingly gave it up.

I was content to do this with Nate until I watched an episode of Supernanny. I don't watch it much, but I happened to have it on and watched as she...in one night...got rid of a 3 year old's soother.

Well, I decided I could do that too. Supernanny used the "Soother Fairy" technique. I knew that wouldn't quite work for us, so instead a story kind of developed where the soother went back to the soother factory on to soother truck to see it's mom and dad. Nate agreed he was too big for a soother, kissed it good bye and I thought that was it.

He was a little sad, but fell asleep just fine. Infact, Willem was more upset than Nate was about the whole thing. Ha, I thought, it's done! But lest we forget moms...nothing is ever that easy with kids, is it? He woke up an hour later bawling his little eyes out. He was heartbroken. So, I let him get up with me and we hung out for the evening. He finally feel asleep and in the morning, acted as if nothing had happened. I told him I was proud of him for going to bed without his soother and he happily announced that he was a really big boy.

It was done, babyhood was truly gone...until he found a soother under his bed. Oops, I'd missed one. He spent the day telling me how much he loved it and how it wasn't going to go be with its mommy and daddy. I told him that would be okay...as long as he didn't put it in his mouth, I'd be okay with him having a soother.

And so that's how it's been. I haven't seen him use it once since then. He took it to bed a couple nights, but it sure wasn't in his mouth when I left him or when I checked on him later. It's actually been on the kitchen counter for about 3 days now and he hasn't asked for it. So, I think we can safely say that Natey's done with his soothers. I'm so very proud of him. Now, we just need to take down the rail at the side of his bed and he truly won't have any traces of baby left at all.

I sure love my big boy.