The Paci Boom Game: Danny v. Daddy

A few weeks ago, we achieved a happy milestone: Daniel sleeps through the night! We put him down around 10:30-11pm and he sleeps til about 5 or 6am. Then Daddy gives him his first bottle and Daniel sleeps until 8. And there is much rejoicing...and sleeping.

Now that he's been sleeping through the night for about a month, we're ready to accept that he's really doing it. But this week we achieved another milestone, the end of the Paci Boom game!

There are a lot of opinions about pacifiers, but we have decided that since babies have a sucking reflex and it's a first step toward self-soothing, we are all about the paci. Which is usually fine. Except at bedtime. 

Daniel started sleeping well at night when Daddy started putting him down instead of Mommy. With Mommy comes the delicious smell of his favorite breastaurant, so sleep was not so much on his mind. With Daddy, he got down to business. With the help, of course, of his paci. 

Some friends of ours have an almost-two year old, James. When James was younger, he started a game our friend called, "Boom." He was learning to pick things up, which he loved to do. But what he loved even more was throwing whatever object he picked up down to the ground and saying, "Boom!" Daniel hasn't mastered the art of grasping things yet, but he is a master at spitting out his pacificer. Really, it's quite impressive the distance he can get!

So the only glitch in our nighttime routine was the game of Paci Boom. It goes like this. 

1. Get Daniel ready for bed (PJs, lotions, bottle, lullabye, prayer, paci). 
   
2. Put Daniel in crib.
3. Put Daddy in bed...in our room across the hall. 
4. Daniel spits out paci.
5. Daniel cries.
6. Daddy gets out of warm, comfortable bed and goes to nursery
7. Daddy puts paci back in Daniel's mouth.
8. Put Daddy in bed...in our room across the hall.
9. Repeat steps 4 through 8 about ten times.

Needless to say, Daddy does not enjoy this game quite as much as Daniel. BUT, over the last few weeks, the game has been repeated fewer and fewer times. Last night we noticed that we've gone two nights without playing Paci-Boom.

Now if only we could get him to drop the game at nap time. I've been playing it as I write this post. It took six rounds, but our sweet little boy is now sleeping in his swing.