Goodbye pink blankie...........

For those of you who had the opportunity of interacting with Lindsey for the first 2 1/2 years of her life know that she had a special blanket that she loved. Ethan and Luke were never attached to anything, blanket, pacifier, thumb, animal, anything. But, Linz had 2 things: her blanket and her thumb. Lucky for us these 2 things went hand in hand though, she didn't do one without the other.

This started out innocent, probably my fault. I heard rumor that if you laid your baby on a silky blanket, they wouldn't get that bald spot on the back of their head, so this is how Linz started off her life.

Here she is only a few days old.
I can't remember exactly when she started sucking her thumb, it was only occassionally at first. And she would suck both the right and the left. (See it is the left here)

And the right here. Notice she still sleeps on the silky blanket.

As she got older, I think she started moving more and it turned into sleeping with the blanket instead of ON the blanket.

And then finally, she started holding the blanket while she sucked her thumb.

She got to the point where she would only suck her thumb when she had her blanket. I had high hopes from this time that when the one went, so would the other?!?!?!?!
We would always "fight" over who got to cuddle with Linz. She loved to be held when she got tired and would suck her thumb and hold her blanket.

Very, Very rarely we would catch Linz sucking her thumb without having her blanket. More often than not this would have been the result of certain persons having just ripped her blanket out of her hands though. (Notice the blanket in her lap.)

And she still loves to cuddle with her blanket. We got to the point where she liked to have her blanket in the car also, so with grandma to the rescue she now had her pink blanket in the house and an identical white blanket that stayed in the car to comfort her there.

Don't mind the laundry, it is clean even Linz clearly is not. This picture illustrates her technique for getting the thumb and the blanket just right. She would insert the thumb and then wrap the blanket around her index finger so the blanket would be right up under her nose.

Linz mostly only sucked her thumb and had her blanket when she was tired and ready for a nap, but occasionally she needed it just for comfort, like when she fell down the stairs, etc.

This is what she looked like after she fell into her deep sleep, no thumb but the blanket right with her.

And again, more cuddle shots. This picture was taken right before we moved from Ohio. Linz has had many wonderful moments and lots of hours logged with this blanket of hers.

She even tried to convince me once that she couldn't take a nap because her baby was in her bed and was using her blanket. Very cute, but it didn't work.

And finally the very last picture I have of Linz with her blanket. This is about 2 weeks before she gave up her blanket.

And now for the story of how we managed to actually get Linz to give up her blanket (and thank goodness the thumb went with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Sorry this is long, but it is my journal entry, so just skip over it if you want.

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About a week before Thanksgiving, I had washed Linz' white blanket and had forgotten to put it back in the van. I tried to give it to Nate when he was driving her somewhere and he said, no she'll be fine, so she went that whole week without a blanket in the van.

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We were going to Cincy for Thanksgiving and I, of course, grabbed her pink blanket to take with us. We left later at night and Linz hadn't napped, so I knew she would fall asleep very soon after taking off in the car. I had hidden the blanket in the van, I think Nate mentioned maybe we should try to see if she can go without her blanket and maybe this weekend could be the time she gives it up.
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She was a little fussy before falling asleep but didn't really even ask for her blanket. I think she mentioned it once, but I think the week she spent without her blanket in the van REALLY helped her be able to fall asleep this time without it. And to my extreme delight, she even fell asleep with sucking her thumb (remember she really only would suck her thumb when she had the blanket to go with it.)

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She did finally fall asleep and I remember thinking, well, that wasn't so bad. I started feeling kind of bad that the time we decided to try to get her to give up her blanket we would be guests in someone else's house, but then we thought, maybe she would be more distracted and out of her normal routine, that it could very well be just the weekend we needed to pry the blanket away from her.

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And so it was. She had a hard time going to sleep most nights we were there, but she always has a hard time going to bed when we are at someone else's house or when we have guests over.

I have to admit I started feeling really guilty and I wanted to give her the blanket back many times that weekend. I almost gave up a few times. But, with Nate's help, I stayed strong and it PAID OFF FOR SURE!!!!

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And so Linz has been blankie and thumb free ever since the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. We had the white blanket in our room and she found it a week or so after we took it away. I thought it was all over after that, but I managed to distract her enough to forget about it again.

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Again, I thought many times those few weeks after Thanksgiving about giving her blanket back to her. I have always thought she was SO cute sucking her thumb, holding her pink blanket. I know she wasn't super old yet and it was still cute to have her attached to something but I also know that those habits only get harder to break the older they get.

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So, overall I am completely amazed at how easy and quickly she gave up her blanket and thumb and I am very blessed that she actually did give up her thumb with her blanket. Before we took the blanket away, I knew that she would either give up the thumb with her blanket, or I thought she could rebel and want her thumb MORE once she no longer has the blanket. We were very fortunate she took the former option and here we are 2 months out and she is doing great.

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I have to admit I have wanted to give her the pink blanket back just to see what she does with it, but I don't think I even want to take the chance of her becoming re-attached. So, for now we are enjoying out BIG, BIG girl.

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While she still had the blanket, we had told her that baby brother would get a blue blanket just like her pink one (in fact we already have one for him.) So we'll see how she does when he has his blue blanket and she has none.
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We sure love our big girl and are SO blessed that it was not any harder to break her of the thumb habit (kind of hard to just take that one away!!!)

And this is how she sleeps now, in her cute princess bed with no blankie and no thumb.