Binkie Fairy

Gwen has been a big binky fan for a long time. Back around her first birthday, we finally put out foot down and only let her have a binky while in bed or while in the car. We got tired of constantly searching for binkies around the house and it was a lot easier to keep track of them this way.

We thought this would also begin the process of slowly weaning her from binkies, but she has proven to be more attached to them than we realized. She often will get in her bed, just so that she can suck on her binky for a few minutes.

Several months ago, we started preparing Gwen for the idea of giving up her binky completely. We told her that if she left her binkies out in a box, the Binky Fairy would take them to give to other babies and leave her a toy in exchange for them. She said that she really wanted a play kitchen, but that she wanted to keep her binkies too. We told her that it was up to her to decide when she wanted to give up her binkies and to let us know when she was ready.

Over the next few months, she started talking about it more and more. Eventually, she decided that she wanted a kitchen bad enough to give up her binkies.

Gwen went through the house and the car, gathered all of her binkies, and gave each one a last suck...

She put them in the box...

And we left them for the Binky Fairy to take...

That night was one of the hardest Gwen has ever had. She had a lot of trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Throughout the night she would start whimpering, which would lead to crying. Rick and I went in there several times and told her that we weren't forcing her to give up her binky. We told her that if she wasn't ready, she could have her binky back. She refused it. Everytime she would go in there, she would ask if the Binky Fairy had come yet. We told her that the Binky Fairy wouldn't come until after the sun came up.

Around 5:00 AM, we gave up on the idea of sleep and all went downstairs. Gwen was still so upset that we couldn't even console her. Finally, around 6:30AM, we told Gwen (who was still upset) that the Binky Fairy would probably still come if she gave up only her car binkies and kept one night-night binky. She immediately put her hand out and asked for her night-night binky. We were so heart-broken (and tired) from seeing her suffer so bravely the whole night that we gave it to her.

She cuddled with it, finally content. A while later, the Binky Fairy did manage to sneak in and take the other binkies and leave a play kitchen. We are suckers.

Here is a video of Gwen finding her kitchen...