Breaking The Habit

The timing is all wrong, but I guess that I could continue to make an excuse to delay the inevitable and hope that Masyn will go cold turkey on her own. And, the chances of that happening are that akin to Mother Nature listening to my pleas to stop the snow from falling.

Masyn is severely addicted to her pacifier which we call a "Chooch" in the house. At any given time, she will be sucking on one with a back up in her hand and should that fail to provide exceptional comfort to her, she will flop them around. Quite often, you can watch her take turns with the chooches within her grasp as if she wants to ensure them all that she doesn't play favourites. She has been known to have at least five within her little hands and she would rather struggle trying to crawl around than to give them up.

We are on day three of trying to break the chooch habit during the day and then once we get that down pat, I will work on the night. I know that it is more a habit than soothing need as she doesn't miss the pacifier if she doesn't see it. In fact, she will for the most part, forget all about them because she is fickle that way. Yet, upon the first sighting, she would likely break the world baby crawling record by sprinting across the room furiuosly as if the thing is going to run away.

However, Masyn has come down with Kaelen's cold and both yesterday and today, she has been miserable and providing comfort to her is proving to be somewhat challenging. And, as if she had known that rehab was coming, she has hidden the little buggers away .... in good spots at that. There are probably a total of 10 in the house and at any given time, I can only find say 3 if I am lucky. It is kind of funny because I am trying in vain to be firm with not caving and giving her a chooch, yet it doesn't really matter what Mommy wants because she will just go and find one from her secret stash. And, because of this massively snot plug nose of hers, it is not like she can suck on it anyways, so it hangs out of the side of her mouth like Popeye with his pipe.

I have read somewhere that you are supposed to cut off the ends of the soothers a little bit at a time but gosh, I just don't think that I am brave enough to suffer the repercussions on that. So, I figure if I go slowly with the weaning that life in this household will be saner and a little more liveable.

So, my question to you all, have you ever had to deal with a soother addiction with one of your children? Do you think that I should just wait and see if she will self wean as she is only 14 months and it is not like she is three. What are your thoughts?