Ever since Kensi was born, then again when William was born, Grant and I have gotten into the bad habit of running to them when they start to fuss instead of letting them self soothe themselves. It started because after Kensi was old enough to go into her own room, we put her in with Isabelle instead of separating them. The reason was because we wanted to keep the spare bedroom available and also because we thought the girls would grow up to love sharing a room together. Our original idea was to have them share a room until one of them says they don't want to anymore. But now, looking back, I can see where that may not have been the best idea in one way. We were so scared that Kensi would wake up Isabelle by crying that we ran to their room at the slightest sound to put her paci back in her mouth. We never gave her that opportunity to learn to self soothe herself. What we probably should have done was to let her learn to self soothe, and if Isabelle woke up, deal with that. But we've been so sleep deprived over the course of the 4 years that we've had kids that sleep ended up being more of a priority. By the time we realized Kensi hadn't learned how to self soothe herself, she was already more than a year old. We started backing off more, but still on the edge of our seats because of Isabelle. Now that Kensi is 3 years old, she can go back to sleep, but not as well as Isabelle can. Our fault, no doubt. Hopefully as she gets older, she can get better at falling back asleep instead of getting up to immediately come find us.
Once William had taken to paci's to help him fall asleep, I almost immediately started thinking of when we'd pull them and take them away. With the girls, it was when Isabelle turned 2. Then we pulled hers and Kensi's at the same time. William is only 8mo, so he's a little young yet (in my eyes anyway) to have them taken away, but I have started the weaning process. With the girls, we did it cold turkey because Isabelle would cry for her paci because she was old enough to depend on it to fall asleep. William hasn't gotten to that point yet, so I figured we could do it a little slower. So starting a few days ago, I purposefully didn't give him his paci when I put him down for the night. He talked and babbled to himself, and fussed for a little bit before falling asleep. There was no screaming or crying. It was actually pretty surprising! He stayed down the entire night too. There was no waking up at 4a, and me needing to give it back to him. It was really nice!
That's my plan as of now. For naps and bedtime, I wont give it to him to start with. If he really starts crying, then I'll give it to him. During the day, he'll have it like normal too. Then, over the course of time, I'll only give it to him for like naps or something. I'll figure that part out once I get there. I'm not exactly close yet so I have some time. My hope is that by the time I take them away totally, he will have learned to self soothe himself to where it wont be that big of a deal. I can hope, right??
