Bye Bye Paci

The past two weeks we have been trying to wean Layton from his paci. He loves them so much and even though he was only getting them for nap time, bed time and occasionally in the car he was asking for it a lot. Every morning when we get him out of his crib he puts them down and says "bye bye paci" with a sad face. He was starting to get really sneaky and would strategically place them in his crib on his blanket once we got him out of his bed in the morning. He would then go into his room while we were getting ready on the other side of the house and pull the blanket through the crib slats and sneak his paci and come show us like he was so proud of himself. He would also pull the diaper bags off the kitchen table or climb up there and dig through the bag until he found his paci. Clifton has been wanting to get rid of them since he turned a year old in June and I always said lets just wait until he is 18 months so the time has come. He turns 18 months old next week and I'm ready to throw the nasty things away. I will miss the convenience of it keeping him quiet in the car on a long road trip or when he was super tired and we were at a restaurant and I just couldn't deal with him whining for the paci it was so easy just to give it to him to make him happy and keep him quiet. I started two weeks ago by poking holes in them to take the suction out of them. Layton noticed the change immediately and I told him the pacis are all broken now. Then a few days later I started cutting the tips a little at a time. He will ask for it now and then say paci broken. We aren't completely finished with them because he wants to hold them in his bed at night and will sometimes hold them in his mouth because there isn't much tip left but I'm hoping by next week he will be ready to give them up. He has had a few melt downs about the broken pacis but for the most part it really hasn't been that bad. I know this is just another phase and a big step in him becoming a big boy but it is still sad he is growing up so fast.