Monday, June 16, 2008

Sleep deprivation

My neighbor had to go away for the evening, so I offered to keep her 7-year-old. So Tyler had his first sleepover! He had a great time, and in fact was up LATER than his playmate (sometime after 11:00pm..ugh) and still felt the need to get up at 7:00am so I'm dealing with a VERY tired boy on my hands right now, especially considering he didn't nap.

So why didn't he nap? Well, because the binki fairy is coming tonight. That's right, think what you want about it, but my almost 4-year-old still has a binki. He hasn't had it for daytime use since at least 18 months old, if not earlier. However, I've justified it's nighttime use for this long for various reasons, most of which is because he reverts to thumb sucking when he is very tired but isn't in bed yet (hence not in a position to use the binki). His pediatrician and my dentist had been in agreement over keeping it for a while, and now it's just plain habit of course. Well, I had planned on waiting until his 4-year-old doctor's appointment and/or his dentist appointment in August to get their opinion, but it dawned on me that I need to get rid of this thing NOW or else it comes too close to the baby's arrival. I don't want him to associate the binki removal with baby arrival or anything of that nature.

So, this morning, while his playmate was still here, we discussed that we'd be leaving the binkies for the binki fairy to come get tonight, and that she'd be bringing them to babies who really need them. Tomorrow their will be a surprise from the binki fairy. Tyler was iffy, but his friend was great about encouraging him.

He got one last suck on the binki:
And then he put them in an envelope to go to the binki fairy:
And then the binki fairy envelope (which he addressed himself) went outside:
Nap time was evil. Well, calling it nap time would be incorrect. "Rest" time was evil, considering he didn't nap. I am dealing with a VERY tired child right now and I'm not thrilled about it. Tonight could be fun. Ugh.

As luck would have it my neighbor is now getting home LATE (not the best timing for this), so I now have to either put Tyler to bed with his friend still here or I have to let him stay up and deal with the ugliness. And, as luck would have it, the dentist called with a cancellation and his first dentist appointment is now TOMORROW at 8:50 am. He's so nervous about this appointment as it is, and now I'm going to be taking a cranky child who potentially was up all night. I'm so utterly excited about this.

1 comment:

Melodie said...

It's definitely better that you do it now rather than when the baby comes. Sometimes I worry that we're making too many changes for Katie right now to force the pacifier subject. We just moved her to a toddler bed last night, and she's been starting to potty train all on her own. I may wait until she's good on one or both of those areas before forcing her to give it up.