The Paci Fairy

The Paci Fairy visited our house last night. We've been talking about the Paci Fairy with Katie for a couple of weeks now to make the transition of giving up her pacifiers a little easier. We'd already minimized her use of pacifiers to sleep time - nap and bed time. However we wanted this transition to occur before the new baby arrives.

I did a lot of research on how best to handle this milestone. I've seen a lot of great ideas and advice out there in blog land. One cute idea was to take the child to Build-A-Bear and have the child pick out a special new stuffed animal. Before the new friend is sewn shut, the pacifiers are placed inside the stuffed animal. Sounds like a lovely idea, but I could just envision my daughter trying to rip that thing apart trying to get her paci's out of it. Ultimately, I went with the "Paci Fairy." The Paci Fairy comes to take the child's pacifiers to give to babies who need them, and in return leaves a special gift for the child for giving up his or her pacifiers, with the message that the child is a big kid now and doesn't need the pacifiers anymore. 


In addition to doing a lot of talking about the Paci Fairy over the last few weeks, I also took some books out from the library to read to Katie that talked about giving up the pacifier. She enjoyed these two:

Yesterday we made a card/letter for the Paci Fairy, and lastnight Katie put the card and her paci's in a little gift bag. I was surprised at how willing she was to do so. We walked out the front door, and she took forever carefully found the perfect spot on the front steps to leave the bag for the Paci Fairy. We went right up to bed and did our normal bedtime routine. She asked once for her paci's but didn't get upset when I reminded her that the Paci Fairy was coming for them. She quickly and quietly went to sleep!

Katie did wake up around 10:30 and couldn't settle herself back down. I think she didn't quite know what to do without her pacifier to soothe her. I tucked her back in, and she was quiet for about 45 minutes. She cried out once more, but then was quiet the rest of the night. When she finally woke up this morning (must have been a rough night because she slept an hour later than usual), we found her peering out of her crib and pointing at the toy left by the Paci Fairy. "What's that?" she repeated, followed by "Cat!" I don't think I've ever seen her so eager to get out of bed! She held tight to that cat all morning, at one point hugging it and saying, "My baby." So sweet.

Round 1 Complete. Now let's see what the next few days have in store!!