Big Girl Bed and Pai Pai Bear

One day when Kayla was first starting to talk, she started asking me for "pie." She looked at me with big eyes and asked "Pie pie? Pie pie?" I thought, she's never had pie. Does she even know what pie is? What is she asking for? Finally I realized that she was asking for her pacifier. So in our house we don't have a "binky" or a "paci" we have a "pai pai."

When Kayla turned 2 we've made a rule that the "pai pai" was only allowed in the crib. She would use it to fall asleep during naps and at night. Sometimes during the day she would climb into her crib, suck on her pacifier for a few minutes, then climb back out and keep playing.

We knew that the time was coming that she would need to give the pacifier up completely and we wondered how to do it. One of the biggest issues is that Kayla is a fabulous sleeper, taking a 2 to 3 hour nap pretty much every day. I was worried that taking away the pacifier would cause sleeping problems, or, if nothing else, cause her to give up her nap (a much needed break for mommy). I knew I wanted to wait at least until after Grant was born to deal with the pacifier issue.

In the mean time, Kayla was out growing her crib.

We finally decided it was time to get a big girl bed. We went shopping and had Kayla help us pick out the mattress. We let Kayla pick some fun sheets (she picked Tinkerbell). We brought the mattress home, set it up in Kayla's room and let her lay in it. We had been talking about it with her, so she knew, pacifiers were not allowed in her big girl princess bed. She said she wanted to sleep in the bed so we took her crib out of the room. We did our regular bedtime routine and put her to bed in her new bed, closed the door, and waited.

And what do you know? She fell asleep! Boom. No pacifier.

After two days, we knew she would be fine. So I brought Kayla and her pacifiers to the mall and she got to pick any Build-A-Bear she wanted and we put the pacifiers in the bear. It was a nice send off. And now she has a nice teddy bear she can sleep with.

Here is Kayla on her big girl bed with her "Pai Pai Bear."And yes, she picked the Little Mermaid outfit for her bear, complete with a flowing red wig.Kayla, of course, wanted to try the wig on.And then she wanted to see what the wig looked like on Grant.

Fabulous!