My son’s binky and I don’t get along and this has nothing to do with him not wanting to give it up or because I am concerned about it messing up his teeth. No, the binky and I don’t get along for a different reason.
Yes, the binky is nice when it is keeping him calm. That’s its job. It’s when it isn’t doing its job that it becomes a problem.
If you are a parent and your baby uses a binky you probably have experienced the problem I am talking about. Your child begins to fuss. This always seems to happen when you are in the middle of something. So you get up and put the binky back in his mouth. It calms him down so you go back to what you were doing.
The binky falls out.
The crying begins again.
This process repeats itself over and over. Eventually, you give up on your hope to get anything accomplished and just sit and hold the baby. Another basket of clothes that won’t get folded or dishes that won’t get washed.
This isn’t unique to home though. The binky and I don’t get along when we are out either. The other day we went to Target. Baby R began crying as soon as we pulled out of the driveway. Not just crying, but screaming. And screaming. Then we realized that we left the binky at home.
As soon as we got into Target we had to head immediately to the baby department. (No passing Go, no collecting $200.) My husband grabbed a package of MAM binkies off the shelf, opened it, and shoved one in R’s mouth. For the record, we absolutely took the package for the binky to the register to pay for it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
The absolute worst is at night and at nap time. The middle of the night isn’t the time that you want to play the binky game. I honest-to-goodness have fallen asleep hanging over the side of my bed while I was holding the binky in Baby R’s mouth. No lie. There have also been times I have had to lay in my bed beside Baby R’s bassinet and continually keep putting the binky back in his mouth.
Another day that I would get nothing done.
I look forward to the day that my son finally breaks up with his binky. Even though I love my son with all my heart, his binky and I just do not get along!
My first 2 children took binkies. My last 4 didn’t. Out of the 4; 2 were thumb suckers, 1 was a blanket snuggler and the worse was the last the baby of the group. He only took to comfort nursing. No blanket, no bottle, no bnkie, nothing. Me and my breast did not get a long for 18 months till he self weaned. I feel you!
6 kids, oh my goodness! I seriously give you so much credit. I can barely handle two babies and an 11 year old stepson most days!
I guess it’s a good thing that my kids went right to fingers and didn’t use binkies. I never had to go through this!
It’ll get easier!! Hang in there!
For us it was a paci. Only one of our three kids used them. I remember this struggle. I will say it does end. Of course we had to convince our little man to give his paci’s to his new cousin (my sister didn’t keep them but shhhh … it worked!)
This made me giggle. We have so been on emergency binky runs. It does get easier.
That’s why I loved having a thumb sucker so much. We didn’t allow binkies (even though it probably would have saved some of my sanity). Thumb pops out, it goes right back in. lol
I feel your pain but I promise it will pass 🙂 My oldest never took to anything, binky, thumb, fingers…. and apparently she used to cry the entire drive home from my office every day.. a full half hour. My brother used to carpool with me and he remembers vividly but I had completely forgotten!!! My 7 year old still sucks her thumb though she has decided she should probably stop. I have not pressured her and I must admit it’s a bit selfish… I love that she can self pacify. Those days are numbered though I can feel it..
I must give my son his binky back 100 times a day, I swear! Just today he managed to grab it and put it into his mouth all by himself though, so there’s hope for us yet!
I feel your pain sister! I feel like every time we go somewhere, we’re buying the same sippy cup over and over!!
I always had a hard time with that – It’s no fun. I tried the whole ‘self-soothing’ thing, but it’s just so much easier with the binky!
Yep, i can remember that time so well! My son is almost 3 and still has that thing….i could care less.
Trisha, it might make me a bad mom but I am less worried about his teeth and more worried about him keeping it in long enough for me to sleep! Hahaha