A Garden Full Of Binkies

Ashby is terribly attached to her binky.  She would have that thing 24/7 if we let her.  After she turned one, we only let her have it at nap time & bed time.  Occasionally when she is sick or gets hurt we let her have her binky for a bit, but for the most part the binky must stay in her bed.

Well, now that she is almost 2 1/2 we feel it is time to wean her from her beloved binky.  We've tried talking about how she is a big girl & only babies need them, but she insists she is a baby & needs her binky.  We tried to tell her we are throwing the binkies in the garbage & she freaks out.  We've tried to tell her the binky fairy is going to take her binkies to other babies who needs them, but she insists she is still a baby & needs it.  We've tried just about every tactic & nothing works.

Recently, I came across a celebrity blog where she planted her daughter's binkies & for every binky that was planted, a lollipop would grow if her little girl slept for the entire night.  Genius!  Ashby LOVES lollipops (and any sweet for that matter) so I thought this plan would work perfectly!

After nap time yesterday I told Ashby that after dinner we were going to plant her binkies in the garden, and if she slept the whole night, she would wake up to a lollipop that had grown throughout the night.  She LOVED the idea!  She kept telling everyone that she was going to get a 'pop pop'!

After dinner we all went outside to plant her beloved binkies.  We couldn't do it in our garden area as we are having our backyard worked on, so the front yard was the next best option.

{Holding her beloved binky one last time}

{Digging a nice little hole for them}

{'Look Mom...dirt!'}

{Bye Bye binkie #1}

{And #2}

{And #3}

{I'll miss you sweet binkies}

She seemed perfectly OK burying her binkies....until it was time to go to bed.  I kept talking to her about how we planted the binkies & if she slept all night she'd get a lollipop in the morning.  She was not having it!  She was crying hysterically & saying 'Binkie, Mommy!'  It broke my heart as she sobbed uncontrollably with big old crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks.  I had secretly kept a couple of extra binkies 'just in case' and I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to run downstairs & get one for her.  But then where does that put us??!!  I'm ready for her to get rid of her binkie but at the same time I feel horrible that I am taking away her one true comfort, the one thing that helps her calm down when she is upset, makes her feel better when she is sick & helps her fall asleep at rest time & bedtime.  Oh, the guilt!

After going up to comfort her a good 5 times, she finally fell asleep at 10:00 pm, a good 2 hours past her normal bed time.  But I am happy to report that she slept through the night, only waking up twice during the night but putting herself back to sleep all by herself!  Hooray!

{Good Morning, My Big Girl!}

As soon as she woke up, we headed outside to see if a 'pop-pop' had grown in place of her buried binkies!

{Yay!  A Pop-Pop!}

{Happy Girl Finding Her Pop-Pop}

{Yummy!}



Night #1 without her binky went way better than I had expected.  Praying nap time & bed time tonight go just as smoothly!  I'm hoping we have a lot of 'pop-pops' continuing to grow in our garden!!!