The Pacifier Fairy

Ava is 3 1/2 and she was still sleeping with a pacifier. I regret not taking it away BEFORE Phin was born; I was sure she would suffer jealousy if she no longer had pacifiers but the new baby did. Of course, as "luck would have it", Phin never took a pacifier. I found ways to ease the guilt I felt as a mom: #1- she ONLY used them for sleeping, #2- she was a good sleeper, #3- the dentist said her teeth looked great, and #4- I read in "Sleeping Through The Night" that some children have the NEED to suck until age 4.

Upon starting preschool, however, I learned that Ava could do without it if needed. I did NOT send her with a paci to school and low and behold, she was able to sleep during rest time. Now, this was shocking to me because she literally sucked that paci ALL night long- not just briefly when falling asleep. I have heard that kids will give it up when ready, but with my kids I started to realize, she probably would not. We've been talking up the pacifier fairy for about 8 months, all ready and waiting for the day when our little girl said, "Tonight is the night I am putting them under my pillow." She hasn't seemed to move any closer to saying it. Tuesday I decided all of a sudden that I was going to "force" her to be ready. She had no school on TH and that would give her 7 nights to adjust before returning to school (in case she was sleeping poorly). I knew my word or Marc's wouldn't be enough, so I put a special letter for her in the mailbox. When she got the mail, she found one card address to HER. This is what it said:
Dear Ava-
You have grown up into such a beautiful, nice big girl. You are ready to leave you pacifiers behind! Please place them underneath your pillow. I will come and take them and give them to Tinkerbell to tinker with and make new wonderful things. In their place, I will leave you a special music box made JUST for you. It will even have your name on the top! See you soon!
Love-
The Pacifier Fairy

I drew a pacifier under the signature. Upon opening and seeing the pacifier, she immediately said, "I THINK IT'S FROM THE PACIFIER FAIRY!" We read it to her and to our relief she was excited. She had a few moment of angst, but was overall very thrilled to know she was ready.

We'd already made plans to make Pink cupcakes after Phin went to bed (we've been reading Pinkalicious) so I let her have one last "suck" with her pink paci.

We used it while we read stories and then under the pillow the whole lot went. We waved goodbye.

Our little girl slept until about 1 am when she ran into our room thrilled to annouce, "THE PACIFIER FAIRY CAME AND LEFT ME A MUSIC BOX, COME SEE!" It went very well!

Now the next few nights were a different story- she got extremely emotional and after a couple days overtired and therefore more emotional than we'd ever seen her! We had lots of hugs and even ended up letting her sleep in our room on night two, but by the fourth night, she no longer cried at bedtime or asked for pacifiers and has slept soundly since. YAY! We made it through our roughest transition yet...