on a serious note

Let me paint a picture for you:

2 years ago in the early hours of my birthday, I was laying on a tile floor, sobbing while holding my crying week-old daughter, trying to get her to nurse - and she was trying to nurse, but it was unsucessful all around.  Mercifully, my mother in law came in, picked me off the floor and took my baby, sending me to get a few hours of sleep.

The next morning I heard my husband rustling out of bed next to me and with my eyes still closed I grabbed his arm and hissed though clenched teeth - “Find out how she got the crying to stop.”

A few minutes later he returned, looked at me apologeticaly and said “Pacifier.”

I’d done my research before baby to see if pacifiers were for me, and all the reports of “trying to get my child weaned makes me want to cut off my own arm to divert the pain!” had me convinced I was not up to the consequence of a paci-lovin’ kid, so I had left the pacifiers given to me in my suitcase.

But laying there in bed after getting the first 6 straight hours of sleep in a week, I threw logic out the window and dedicated myself to the jamming of that plug in her mouth for some peace and quiet.

Got it?  Now let’s fast forward 2 years and some change…

I get the “looks” - the comments - heck, I even get I from the woman that initialy gave it to her! I have no-pacifier zones and I do enforce them, but I’m starting to worry…

I tell myself kids in Brasil suck on those things until geez, at least 5, and since WonderToddler is Brasilian I joke that it’s just her culture.  She’s only 2 - I tell myself I’ll worry when she turns 3 - but there’s times she will go berzerk without one.  When I give her “time-out” - she SCREAMS for it.  She doesn’t know how to comfort herself without it.  I will ignore her and hope she calms down eventually, but she’ll get so hyserical she’ll actually hurt herself, and I don’t know what to do.  I’ve tried everything I can think of.  It seems black and white, but my heart breaks when I see what she’s done to herself.

And it’s not just the getting her off the pacifier thing - it’s the how to teach her to self-comfort that’s getting me.  She’s a little drama queen.  Wonder where she got that?   But I’ve been known to get hysterical and do things I’m not proud of either… and I don’t know how to break the cycle.

Dagnabit, do I need to get her a therapist already??  Only 2 years and I’ve already broken her.  Crap!