She Wants Her Binky

Julia has been a binky baby. Sometime around 18 months, they no longer allowed binkies at school and Wayne and I followed their lead to banish the binky except for nap and bedtime. It was a rough couple of days and what I imagine to be akin to drug withdrawal (at the baby level). If you've never been close to someone with a binky addiction, you might not realize how serious it is. When Julia was still breastfeeding, she sometimes would stop, take a drag from her binky and then go back to feeding.

We've lived in harmony with the binky-only-in-bedroom arrangement for the past year and a half, but we'd been planning for the time to say good-bye to the binky forever. I'd read about strategies for getting kids to give up certain habits and settled on the binky fairy. The idea is that the "big girl" (or big boy) gives her binky to the binky fairy who will redistribute it to the babies of the world who truly need it. In exchange, the big kid gets a present and the good feeling of having been charitable. We've been telling her for the past few months that she would undergo this rite of passage when she turned 3.

At first, she thought that was fine, so long as the binky fairy would give the binkies back. When she understood that that was not the plan, she'd sometimes cry if we brought it up. Then she seemed to accept the idea and take comfort in the fact that she wouldn't turn 3 in awhile.

Julia just turned 3 this past Saturday. For the last several weeks, she's been more attached to the pacifier, sometimes excusing herself in the middle of the day to go up to her room and sit with one or even two binkies in mouth. If she could have articulated it, she would have said, "I don't have much time with them left. I just want to make every moment count." The day after her birthday, she just wanted to be with her binkies and seemed curious about why she still had them now that she was three. Before going out to a store, she said she wanted to give her binkies to the binky fairy. I felt unsure, but Julia was right, we needed to get over the dread. So we hung the binkies on our little dogwood and when we got back home, the binky fairy (one named Wayne) had left a bracelet/watch made of wooden beads and a rather wordy letter about how proud the binky fairy was of Julia, in their place. In good humor that lasted only for several minutes, Julia put the bracelet in her mouth.

Then she experienced buyer's remorse. This was hard for us too. As much as we want her to have good teeth and as much as we want her to be able to soothe herself without any props, it's not fun to take something away from your little girl that gives her so much comfort. And I was sentimental about saying good-bye to the binky and the little girl that needed them.

That night and the next were difficult. Whining about wanting her binky. Asking for a lollipop at bedtime. Crying and not going to sleep. The second night, I told her the binky fairy was in China and couldn't come back with her binkies, but we could sing about the binky. I sang the song that I used to sing in the morning to remind her to put the binky away before coming downstairs. To the tune of the restaurant Chili's advertisement for baby back ribs, it went, "Please put your binky back, binky back, binky back, please put your binky back, binky back binky back. Biiinnkkyy, oh binky back." She was amused, but then told me to stop singing that song. She requested that I sing a never-before heard song, "She Wants Her Binky."

It was two nights of pain, but she seems okay now. Older, wiser, 3.