The Lily Pad

Looking for something fun to do in your area this weekend with your family. Have you checked out The Mommies Network? This is a great resource for fun family activities going on in your area. Just click here and see if there is a Mommy Network in your area. Let us know some of the fun things you and your family did that you found out about on your Mommies Network site.

This is the last post in a series; read our little journey in Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them!

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a great weekend devouring all that candy goodness.

For those of you readers who are trick-or-treaters, I've compliled a little list of safety tips to keep in mind as you go out tonight!

So How to Ditch the Paci?

This is Part 2 in a series ~ if you missed it, be sure to read my daughter's pacifier addiction in Part 1!

The picture above is evidence as to why I started thinking it was time to drop the pacifier from naptime, which would then basically eliminate it, except in emergencies. Lately it seems that if I give it to her when I want her to go to sleep, she gets real happy, and plays with it more than being lulled to sleep by her own sucking like before.

I noticed this about a month ago, when I drove to a friend's house a little over an hour away. I figured if I'd give Chiquita the paci in the car, she'd sleep the whole way there. Nope, just talked and played with it. I realized through observation that if she fell asleep in the car on her own without it, she tended to fall into a deeper sleep.

Since her nap has not been as long lately as it has been before, I started thinking maybe that observation would hold true during her nap, too. Maybe if she fell asleep without it at naptime, like she does at bedtime, she'd sleep better. Maybe she's accidently outgrowing her paci.

So I asked my friends on Twitter if they had any suggestions. Unfortunately for me, most of them applied to slightly older toddlers, but they were such great ideas, I wanted to reprint them here.

@SarahInMI

We used “The Pacifier Fairy” {click to read her story- I absolutely love this idea for an older kid!}. The first few days were rough, but it got better – we did it cold turkey. Rip it off like a bandaid!

@Fussypants

Paci Love

I was thoroughly against the pacifier before my daughter, Chiquita, was born. But when the nurse suggested we try one in the hospital to calm her down a little, I figured it was worth a try. And, well, let's just say it stuck. She loved it. I laugh a little internally inside when I hear people muse about babies that wouldn't take a paci, only because it's funny how different babies can be! Ours was addicted to hers from the beginning. So I decided to just relax, and go with it.

Let me start by listing a few benefits to the paci for us:

• It's soothing (and part of Dr. Karp's 5 S's for soothing is sucking).
• It's incredibly helpful in public places (i.e. airplane, baseball games) or when traveling and schedules are thrown off.
• Relieved me from having to nurse at take-off and landing every time we flew (especially since nursing was more schedule oriented for us and flying didn't always come at “mealtime”).
• It makes putting her down for a nap/to bed much easier in new places.
  

>When our little Chiquita was little, we found Dr. Harvey Karp's book/video, The Happiest Baby on the Block, to be an invaluable resource. We watched the video, which focuses primarily on the 5 S's and how to use them to calm a fussy baby. His theory is that these 5 steps, when done in the proper order are effective in “turning on” a calming reflex in the baby. I've included the main points from each “S” chapter as listed on his website {along with my own comments}.

(Here's our little one, as her uncle practices the S's)

>Dr. Karp's 5 S's