Say goodbye to the NUK!

Our goal these last couple months have been to get rid of the NUK!  Laila has had this since she was born and it seems to have taken over her world and become a perminant fixture on her!!  I've called Laila the nuk hoarder!!  Even though Laila has her nuk in her mouth, she will steal Lainies as a standby incase hers get lost or taken!  Thankfully Lainie has not had this bad of a problem with the nuks!  That is why we wanted to get rid of hers now before it came to the point where Laila is at.

Before we moved to TX, we were going to try and ween the girls off of it.  Since I was at home with the girls all day, the nuk was my life savor as many of you momma's can relate!  I wasn't ready to give it up and didn't want to, but I was going to tickle the idea!  Soon after we started, we found out we were moving to TX.  We then decided to put the process on hold since moving was going to be enough stress on them!

The nuk removal never really got started til about 2 months ago.  We would take it away during the day and give it to them at their at naps and bedtime.  This was starting to work and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel!  At first I felt horrible for the two college girls who lived below us!  Laila was sooo cranky, upset, ticked and just plain mad at us for taking away her best friend, comforter, etc.  At one point I called Andy at work and told him I was putting in my two weeks notice!  He just laughed and said we would get through it!  I then requested a raise instead!  I have yet to get my yearly review! :)  Anyways it was going to be a long run!  Lainie has never really shown as much attachment to it as Laila, so the process was going to be a piece of cake for her!

I have to say this has also been a process for myself as well for the girls!!  I was taking away something they have always known and comforted them!  How was I going to do it!  We tried to cut the nuk at the tips and continue each week til there wasn't anything left!  Yeah that didn't work to well!!  I would find the nuk in Normans cage all chewed up!  The second trial run of the nuk cutting also ended up in Normans cage!  We were working with smart kiddo's!  I had two left and refused to buy anymore!  I was getting down to the wire! 

Last Friday as we were playing and cleaning up, one of the last two nuks went missing!  I've searched this place up and down and have yet to find it!  My only worries is Laila will find it somewhere and all our hard work these last six days will go down the drain!  Taking advantage of this window of opportunity, I decided to hide the remaining nuk and start the cold turkey withdrawl!  I totally think it's a withdrawl process!  The first two days Laila kept asking where her nuk was?  We kept replying with, it's lost but we will go look for it in a bit.  That would seem to hold her for the time being and would eventually forget about it!  The first night I worried it was going to be the hardest!  Nope a piece of cake!  The girls did great!  Again we had to keep reminding Laila we would find it tomorrow and she would accept it.  Lainie never really showed much emotion that it was gone.  We were finally getting somewhere!!!  We have been nuk free for 6 days and counting!!

Most of you will probably wonder why this is so important to post about!  If you have a kiddo/baby that has been through it, you will understand!!  Plus I am so proud that we did this as a family!!  The nuk word is no longer welcomed at our house and is usually spelled out so certian ears don't get reminded of this!!  Everyone is different when it comes to taking away the nuk and I feel we just had to wait until it was the right time for the girls!!  The picture of Laila is with her happy nuk free smile!  The picture of Lainie is one that does not include a nuk as she sleeps!!!  So woooohoooo on the nuk removal!!!!  Til the next!  EN