Friday, May 04, 2007

Beyond the Bink



Chuckles is well into his third year. 27 months to be exact. He is interested, maybe even fascinated by the toilet. He feeds himself. He opens the refrigerator door to do his own meal planning. He walks the Psychopoodle. He cuddles cats. Telling him to do "big boy" things is a great motivator. He wants to be a big boy. He, on occassion, wears a size 2 T pair of trousers.

But, still, we have the comfort of the pacifier lingering. He can drag a barstool to the drawer where Nini is stashed. He unearths them from the couch cushions. He rescues them from under his bed. He squeals with delight when he finds one awaiting him, fur-encrusted, in his car seat.

This is a job for Google. Research is always my friend; Dr. Green, Dr. Spock, Swedish Hospital in Seattle. All had their suggestions, insights. Not one really offered a step-by-step approach. One suggested a dip in pickle juice. Big Daddy was in favor of that. Didn't know Big Daddy was serious when he'd offer the Fouryearold a slug of pickle juice for breakfast. I've gotta keep an eye on Big Daddy.

Chuckles does have some cuteness going with his Nini, though. I tell him, when we're about to leave the house to go to the market that he'll have to put his Nini in his pocket. His pocket is the front of his shirt. He's become very adept at stuffing the bink down the neck of his shirt. The Nini issue may take care of itself because his shirt is rarely tucked into his trousers.

The only bit of information I can gather from the multitude of web sites (Today's Toddler? Is there also a Yesterday's Toddler?) is that when it's time for the bink to go, Chuckles will chuck it.

1 comment:

Beanie said...

OK, here's my story and my $0,02.

So my daughter never got into the Bink thing. She was a thumb sucker. And she was very focussed about it!

I didn't even TRY to get her to stop until school started. She wanted to suck her thumb? I didn't think it was hurting anything.

When school started, I laid down the law: No thumbs at school. No exceptions.

I also told her that, once she lost her first tooth, that was it: no more thumbs. We talked about it several times: When her first tooth got loose, we discussed how she should think about things to do other than sick her thumb. We talked about how sucking her thumb would ruin her permanent teeth. She bought into it. She made plans for her "thumb graduation"

When her first tooth came out, she stopped sucking her thumb. Never looked back. I had to hold her hand until she fell asleep the first two nights, but it's never been a problem since.

I think it worked because I didn't force her to stop for random reasons. She bought into the reasons for stopping and she had internalized the timeline.

Good luck!