To "B" or Not to "B"

When Milo went through the beginning of his alphabet phase he started calling his binky his "B" and the name stuck. He loves his "B" with the love that only a small child can muster. He yearns for his binky and will throw outright, screaming, on the floor tantrums if he doesn't get it. To take it one step further, lately his "B" and his giraffe (which Milo has named Roff) are a package set. If he has one, he wants the other and, "Mommy, don't you know that I can't hold Roff without my binky? It just isn't done..."

When we went to Milo's 2-year appointment a few weeks ago we hesitated in telling the nurse practitioner that Milo still used a pacifier and asked what kind of timing she thought we should use to wean him off of it. To be honest, neither of us care if he uses it still at night, while napping or even during the daily commute. I mean, seriously, we make the kid sit in the car for an hour - the least we can do is let him have his "B" to pass the time. Our main question was just for his day use which, as I have mentioned, would be all day, every day if we let him.

I absolutely thought she would look down her nose at us and question why we let him have it to begin with at his age. Surprisingly she just gave us a pamphlet and told us that every child is different. We later read the pamphlet from the American Academy of Pediatrics which pretty much said that under the age of 3 some kids have more of a need to suck than others and that a pacifier generally causes no physical or emotional damage. Further, it said that most concern is from parents worrying about what other people think. Nice. Because truthfully? I guess that has been my concern. I have felt that we should have weaned him off the bink by now. I have felt that we are taking the easy way out by letting him pacify himself (in the truest sense of the word).

Obviously, Mark and I can't take Milo's "B" which he loves simply because we are concerned with what other people think so the question now becomes how often can he have it... Even though we are OK with him having it sometimes, I don't want him to walk around with it permanently affixed to his cute little lips. For now we just try to keep it out of sight and distract him when he requests it. Sometimes it works, more often it doesn't. Anyway, you will definitely know us if you run into us at the grocery store. We are the ones with the sweet little curly-haired boy with a binky stuck in his mouth while simultaneously yelling out his ABCs.