We never had to fight the battle of weaning our older daughter off the nook because she never accepted the nook when she was a baby. From day one she would spit it out immediately. Since she never accepted it, we never thought about the best method to wean her from it. I must say, however, that there were many days where my wife and I both wished that she would just take the nook to calm her down. There were many nights where our daughter cried herself to sleep.
My two year old accepted the nook immediately and it was a great relief to us when it came to nap/bed time. She never had a problem falling asleep with a nook in her mouth. The silence was wonderful. Now that she's 2, it's time to wean her off the nook. We started this process a couple of months ago, but then she caught a cold and we let her have it again. We've now begun the weaning process for good.
It's been several nights since we started this process and I've learned that my daughter follows the 5 basic levels of grief each night: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
1. Denial - At first she's not sure what to think about losing the nook. I think she considers it a hide and seek game and that she'll eventually get it back before bed.
2. Anger - Once she realizes that bed without a nook is real, the full out screaming begins. Some nights she skips denial and starts right in with anger.
3. Bargaining - She can't speak full sentences yet, so bargaining is difficult but screaming eventually turns into loud yells for "Mommy!" and "Daddy!".
4. Depression - After yelling and screaming for awhile she calms down a bit and whimpers and sobs lightly in bed.
5. Acceptance - Following the whimpers she calms down further and begins to talk/babble in a happy voice. This is shortly followed by sleep.
The weaning process is going good so far, given that we know there'll be a 10 - 15 minute period of screaming and yelling. Hopefully that will diminish soon and she'll go to bed beginning at the acceptance stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment