The end

Trystan is now cordless. Wait, he’s been cordless since he was 5 days old. But he no longer requires a plug.

He no longer requires a pacifier, that is. Nuk, binkie, pacy, plug.

We actually let him keep it far longer than our original plan. Before he was born, I didn’t intend to start one at all. But then after learning to nurse for a day he was whisked to surgery and the NICU, and deprived of any food by mouth for about a week. He got a pacy. And, despite the surgery, and the pacy, and all the nasty pedialyte the NICU folks kept insisting that he drink (newborns don’t even get flavors…theirs tastes like licking concrete), he still learned to breastfeed.

At that point, we knew he was facing two additional surgeries, which later became three. And there would be more days of no eating. And we let him keep the pacy. Originally, he would be done with surgeries by about 5-6 months old. His last (of the bowel series) was at 9 months. So we let him keep the pacy even longer. And finally, there was the need for an MRI to rule out a tethered spinal cord. And if the test had shown tethering (it didn’t), then he would have needed more surgery. We let him keep the pacy much longer.

And then, last summer, he was 18 months old and using an infant-sized pacifier, and he was teething. A lot. And that darned pacifier (or rather, collection of them), became wonderfully portable and washable (dishwasher, baby) teething rings. So he kept it.

Last fall, he discovered that we had multiple pacifiers, and it became a GAME. Could he do tricks with it? Roll it over without using his hands? How many would fit in his mouth at once? Would Mommy or Daddy suck on the pacifier? We banished it to his bed, for sleepytime only. And if he wanted it while awake, he had to sit in the crib.

Finally, over Christmas, he had a couple of naps without it. And one night, my husband couldn’t find one at bedtime and Trystan fell asleep anyway. That was it. The end of the pacifier. We rounded up our remaining 3 pacies, and hid them out of sight. And though Trystan asked for it a couple of times later, we didn’t offer one.

The fallout hasn’t been so bad. There have been some nights and early mornings where I suspect Trystan might have put himself back to sleep if he’d found a pacy on his pillow. Instead, like this morning, he stand up and hollers until one of us (usually his daddy, who is a lighter sleeper and closer to the door) rocks him or brings him to our bed for a snuggle.

Now if we could only get his big sister to stop sucking her fingers...