Getting rid of the paci...

As of this past Friday (May 11th) Lucy is officially PACI FREE!!! With the impending arrival of baby #2 in just 3 short months, we decided that we needed to wean Lucy from the paci now or wait until after she has fully adjusted to having a little sister (which could take awhile). When Lucy turned one, we only allowed her to have her pacis in her crib for bedtime and nap time. The transition went fairly well, but a couple of months ago when she learned how to say "paci", she started asking for it all of the time...and it was beginning to drive both Josh and I nuts! It was literally making me go so crazy, that I started giving in to her requests and letting her have her paci outside of her crib when she was fussy or whining (bad momma, I know). It takes Lucy a bit to adjust to change, so I knew going cold turkey would not work for her. So, a couple of weeks ago I slightly clipped the tips of all of her pacis (she usually had 2-3 in her crib at a time - one to suck on and the others to hold on to/play with). It really didn't bother her at first...I could tell she noticed a small difference, but she still sucked on it to fall asleep. And the biggest (and best) difference is that she stopped asking for it during the day after a few days...a small battle won! Every 2-3 days, I clipped a little bit more off the tip. Eventually, it was just a little nub and it was getting harder and harder for her to keep it in her mouth. This went on for about 2 weeks (maybe a couple of day over 2 weeks). This past Friday we started our normal bedtime routine of reading a few books and then rocking and singing Jesus Loves Me before putting her in her crib. That evening she did not ask for her paci when we were rocking, so I just went with it and didn't offer it to her. When I laid her in her crib, I bit the bullet and pulled the other pacis out before she noticed them. She did start asking for her paci and I told her that her pacis went bye bye and that pacis are for babies. Of course she quickly started crying. I patted her a few times on the back and told her to hang on to her lovie and left the room. Thinking it would be a long night, Josh and I prepared ourselves for the worse. But literally after a minute of crying she stopped and started talking to herself (like normal) and fell asleep shortly after! We were shocked...and so excited! She slept all night long and woke up around 7:30am the next morning (a little earlier than normal). She's doing great a bedtime (still shedding a few quick tears right when we lay her down) and pretty well at nap time. She goes down fine for her nap, but she's waking up earlier than normal (and sometimes during her nap). Hopefully we'll return to the 2.5-3 hour nap soon. All in all, it's been a pretty seamless and easy transition....easier than I thought it would be at least! I was scared to death to do it, but I'm so glad we did!

Some other fun tidbits about Lucy right now....she has started saying her name, which is so stinking cute I can hardly stand it! And she's started associating things that belong to her...like "Lucy's shoes" or "Lucy's milk." She can pretty much repeat any words we ask her to say and she is combining 2-4 words together. It really is amazing how fast her little vocabulary is increasing.

Lucy love animals and she's learned several new sounds over the past week....monkey, snake, cat, lion, bear, elephant and alligator. Here is a video of her and dad practicing a few days ago...