Bye Bye Wubbie

Last Wednesday was Owen's last day with a "Wubbie" (pacifiers called WubbaNubs, sewn into the mouths of a soft toy animal).  For a long time up until this point, the twins only kept their Wubbies in their cribs and would run for them (and blankies of course) before nap and bedtime.  Both have been slowly biting holes in the pacifier part, and Owen's finally broke.  Unfortunately they don't make these with varying thicknesses of pacifier like the regular old Soothies; all are the super soft ones meant for 0-3 months and can quickly get holes with a few strong chomps (hence the 0-3 month thing).  Owen broke through another one a while back (an elephant), but lucky for us our kind and generous Wubbie supplier, Sissy, has given us an abundance of these essential baby items!!  So we gave him a new monkey, told him not to bite it, and a few months later here we are.  I wasn't really that concerned that he'd have a hard calling it quits on the pacifier - in fact I was the one most sad about the transition - I'm going to really miss seeing how cute Owen looks with that thing hanging from his mouth.  But now that the boys are 2, I knew it probably isn't a good idea to encourage the habit by handing over another new Wubbie!

So as we were getting them ready for bed, I showed Owen the broken Wubbie and told him I was going to fix it and left the room.  A few quick snips later, the sewn in pacifier was out.  You can see Owen's looks of confusion after I returned the monkey to him.  I don't think he and I had the same thing in mind when I said "fix it".  But confusion quickly turned to acceptance when we told him he can still snuggle the Wubbie like his blankie, and he was happy.  I've heard of kids having a hard time letting go of pacifiers...I wonder if the makers of WubbaNubs could further their business by marketing the animal sans pacifier as an effective way to ease kids off while still keeping a lovie they've been attached to all along!  It worked like a charm for us, and we'll see how it goes for Oliver in the coming weeks (his giraffe also has bite holes forming).  I've seen Owen looking longingly / enviously at Spencie's Wubbies (he still have several in rotation around the house, and is allowed to have his outside of sleeping), but have not seen him make any attempts on "borrowing" one.  I think he really gets that he's too big for them now and has moved on...now can Mommy?  Is it weird that I want to sneak into his room at night and put a new one in his mouth?  Just kidding, sort of.

Owen showing us how he's going to snuggle with the "fixed" Wubbie!