Our youngest, Gabriel, is now five and a half years old. He will be entering kindergarten in the fall. We were glad to have him wait for a year. This last year was definitely important for him developmentally. This also means, of course, that it was important for us, develomentally. Having a third child--after seven years of going back and forth over whether it really would be a good idea or not--puts one in a very strange position of combined pragmatics and penchant to prolong one's child's time of being small. On the pragmatic side Gabriel was allowed to do things, like be by himself on the trampoline or watch a full length DVD at a much earlier age than were his older brothers. The pragmatism of this lay more than anything in the fact that it made our lives easier. On the other hand, Gabriel required a diaper, every time he felt a "number two" coming on until he was four. He also continues to not eat most of the foods we normally eat as a family (except burgers). But most of all, until just two weeks ago, Gabriel had continued to keep his pacifier (or Schnuller as we lovingly call it in our family).
This did not happen unconsciously on our part, however. Leslie and I talked about it frequently and, yet, every time came to the same conclusion: not yet. How did we rationalize it? Well, mostly we told ourselves that Gabriel was doing enough things that made him seem more "mature" than his older brothers at that age. For example, Gabriel at 3 years of age, on his own, brought his plate to the sink, scraped left-overs into the garbage and made sure he didn't spill anything in the process. He slept well and often. Never much trouble getting him to go to sleep. Also, though he required a diaper for number two, he slept without a diaper early (compared to the other two) and in his whole life only had two accidents. The Schnuller was a way of "giving him a break." Gabriel was doing so many things right, we couldn't bring ourselves to take his beloved Schnuller it was. Even medical advice from his dentist and pediatrician didn't change that for us.
We had gotten to a theoretical point of only letting him have his Schnuller at night. But Gabriel was smart enough to beat that rule many times. Mostly what he said was he was tired and wanted to snooze a bit. Another thing he would like to do is say he just wanted the Schnuller by him, not put it in his mouth. Of course, minutes later when we returned to the where he was sitting the thing was in his mouth. If he heard us approach he'd try to hide it quickly. Many small dysfunctions in other words.
We had reminders, though, that by letting him keep his Schnuller we were not only giving Gabriel a break but also ourselves. Feeble attempts at "asking" him to try sleeping without it failed miserably. It just seemed easier to continue to hope he would outgrow it. Most importantly, however, our older two sons, Noah and Jacob, kept pushing us about it. It was annoying, to say the least. Our sons were giving us parenting advice for their younger brother? Come again! But the truth is: they were right. Gabriel needed to lose his Schnuller and we needed to make this possible. By the way, our older sons' criticism of the way in which we raise Gabriel didn't end with the Schnuller. They both feel that we baby him too much. According to them, he gets away with too much whining, we are not principled enough and we speak to him in a way not suitable for a five year old boy. I am not sure about these issues and I am curious to think more about "envy-issues" that might also be in the mix here. But they were right on the Schnuller issue.
Two weeks ago I decided to take matters into my very own hands. My sons and myself had decided to go to Michigan for a three day camping trip. This would be the time, I decided, to "lose" his Schnuller. (When I was 2 my parents took my Schnuller awa saying the mag-pie had stolen it. Apparently, I was upset, but mostly mad at the mag-pie. So it seemed easy enough to use the camping-trip for something similar.)
Gabriel had, as he usually does, taken all the "important" things with him. His blanky (a tattered old piece of an old tee of mine) a soft toy shark and . . . his Schnuller. As soon as we got to the camp-site and had set up camp he spread these items out on his sleeping-bag to behold. I knew this would be harder than I had imagined. While the boys were still out, I took the Schnuller and hid it in the car.
Gabriel was upset. The worst part about it was that he kept saying "I knew that it was here, I had brought it and put it here." But the worst part was when he said in tears "I lost my best friend." So, I had hit the jack-pot: I was a bad parent and a liar. I kept quiet though and told him I would sleep next to him and scratch his back for a very long time. He finally settled down and, after a relatively short time, fell asleep. Of course, when he woke up to pee he was looking for it again. He was surprisingly chipper throughout the following day, but asked me about it again in the evening. I simply reminded him of how well he had done without it the night before. He fell asleep and slept through the night. The following day, on the way home, he starting talking about the extra Schnullers he had at home. That was my chance to make things at least partially right. Instead of "losing" those too, I told him I would take them away because he had done so well without one on our camping trip. Gabriel was not happy, but he accepted it.
What has changed since two weeks ago? Well, much less than we had feared. Gabriel still goes to bed easily. If anything, he seems to have gotten more outspoken about his likes and dislikes. He may be a bit more clingy right now and his skepticism with strangers is a tad more palpable. But he is also more likely to explore and be curious about things, especially when it involves climbing, sliding and jumping. The other thing that has changed is that his brothers seem to feel some pride about having been catalysts in this process. I am happy for them about that. I am happy, too, that they felt confident and invested enough to make their opinion known. Their opinions about each other will likely not always be right, but they were intuitive in this case and helped us get unstuck.
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