Upon you , our slumber depends.
Tucked perfectly between those rosey, plump lips
praying it's never lost, forgotten or slips!
Babies and parents, they need their sleep
So , Binky, your please promise keep!
And when the time to part ways does arrive
I pray to heaven we all survive!
Ok. So here's my confession: I was one of those mom's who was never going to even so much as allow a binky in my house. I despised them and always worried my kid would be the five year old at the park with a binky hanging out of their mouth, snaggle- toothed and unable be understood through that plastic piece of junk in their mouth. But guess what, that was back before I had kids and knew nothing about being a mom. So, Mack ended up with a bink. And up until last night, she still had one. I was my own worst nightmare.
Mack's only ever used her pacifier at night and naps. She has the same two pacifiers that she's had since she was 3 months ( with plenty of disinfecting between , of course) and the paci's never leave her room. But still, I couldn't fight off this load of mommy guilt that weighed heavy on my back. Embarrassed, I came clean to Mack's pediatric dentist. I worked in pediatric health care and had heard the spiel about binkies plenty of times. I braced myself for the "look" followed by " the talk".
And guess what? Her dentist didn't yell at me or eye me carefully as she signaled for the assistant to call Child Protective Services ( this is how it went down in my head before the appointment, anyway). She actually relieved me of my guilt.
She told me that because I have limited use of the paci, Mack's teeth show no hint of damage due to the pacifier. She said the only thing she sees wrong with Mack's teeth are an inherited over bite. One that won't be fixed magically by yanking the binky. She told me that paci is just like a blanket or favorite stuffed animal- it's a comfort item and one that's causing no harm.She told me not to worry about taking the paci until sometime between 3 and 4 unless I was really bothered by it.
So the plan was to let Mack hang on to her bink for a bit longer as I regularly fed her small snippets of information that would hopefully comfort her when the time came for the bink habit to be broken.
Fast forward to last night when a small, confused sounding voice, calls for me from Mackenzie's room. She hadn't seen her daddy so I brought her out for a quick hello before I tucked her back in bed. As we get into the lamp lit living room, I see why the voice sounded small and confused. Mack had bitten a whole through her binky . Oh man! Of course, the bink needed to be trimmed down so there was no choking hazard. With nothing but a tiny plastic nub left of her beloved binky, Mack asked to throw it away. I think my heart was more broken than hers as she so easily tossed this faithful friend in the garbage. I was heart broken because I knew that eventually Mack would come to feel the void left by this comforting piece of plastic for which she had not slept with out since she was three months old.
While Mack slept perfectly through the night with no trouble, she cried the tears of a heart broken little girl at nap time. And I wanted to cry right along with her. The tears were sincere longing for that old friend . Though it was so hard, I know that in a day or two, Mack will drift off to sleep with out so much as a though of the binky. And so goes the last remnant of my baby leaving behind a sweet smile and perfectly accessible, kissable lips.
Finding pics of Mack with her binky is pretty hard to do since she only used it for sleeping. Here's one of the only I could find:
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