Debinkification Deconstructed

As promised, I will break down the debinkification process that we used on Lilly so that all parents can torture the binkies right out of their children’s mouths.

What You’ll Need:

• 1 child with a binky habit (God help you with more than 1 because I don’t know if I can)
• 1 pin
• 1 pair of scissors
• 1 boring week when sleep can be forfeited and your child is not dealing with any other major changes
• Patience
• Noise-cancelling headphones (optional)

Before You Get Started:

• Gather all binkies. I hear of kids that have just one binky, but Lilly had tons. They gathered in the car, in my bag, in the cabinets, under the crib, in the toybox. These all need to be retrieved. The last thing you want 3 days into the process is for your little angel to uncover a perfectly good binky to replace the deformities you’re offering.
• Decide on a start date with all caregivers. Obvious, right? But I can’t tell you how many times Elliott and I planned to do this and then didn’t because we just said “this weekend” and not “first thing Saturday.”

The Ground Rules:

• Do not deny the binky.
• Do not react to your child’s dissatisfaction with the “new” binky.
• If you child asks for another binky, give him/her another similarly mutilated binky.

Getting On With It Already:

Day 1: The night before you plan to start debinkification use your pin to puncture the tip of the binky. Test it to make sure there are enough holes of sufficient size to pull air through the binky when sucked. Do this and all other binky mutilation to all binkies your child will encounter and do it out of your child’s sight.

Days 2-3: Cut the tip off the binky, so it looks like this:

This is when you’ll want to pull out those noise-cancelling headphones if you’ve exercised that option. If not, turn that TV up and step away from the baby monitor. Up until now the goal has been to interfere with the suckling action involved with using a binky, thus making the binky less soothing for the child and, ultimately, less appealing to the child. At this point, the mutilation will begin interfering with the child’s ability to keep the binky in his/her mouth, thus also becoming a source of frustration.

Day 4: Cut a little more off the top of the binky, so it looks like this:

Day 5: Make vertical cuts around the open edge of the binky, so it looks like this:

Days 6 and continuing: Continue to cut the binky a little more each day, alternating between horizontal and vertical cuts until the child no longer wants the binky. So in the final stages it’ll look like this:

Or even this:

***The one very important caveat to each of these steps is that a binky should NEVER be given to a child if the cuts made create a choking hazard. Be especially cautious of this if your child likes to bite or chew on the binky. You know this. I know you do. But I am a former litigator . . . ***

Tips:

• Hide all binkies other than the one your child is focused on at that moment. The idea is to let your child think that everything is business as usual — request a binky, get a binky — but you and I both know it is not. The ultimate goal is to eliminate requests for binkies and leaving binkies around will only be a reminder.
• Be flexible. Of course, this is Rule #1 for all things parenting. In this case, I think it is good to be flexible about when and how much you cut the binky each day. In Lilly’s case, we never got past cutting the tip off. That one step was so devastating to her binky attachment that she stopped requesting it before I could give her a binky with the additional cuts. But my nephew needed to get to the point of being incapable of keeping it in his mouth. Both techniques worked, you just have to see the reaction you get and go from there.
• Push boundaries. I’m going to contradict myself a bit here, but I warned you to be flexible! Sometimes I wonder if I was just too soft to push myself and Lilly far enough. When Lilly stopped regularly requesting the binky after the first cut, it was easiest to just distract her on the rare occasion when she asked for it. But I do wonder if she would be sleeping better now if I had taken it a step or two farther. Then maybe she would have gotten so frustrated with the binky that she wouldn’t even long for it. I’m not sure. Just something to keep in mind.
• Stay strong. I’ll be honest: Lilly’s sleep, post-binky, is not what it was. Not a day has gone by since we started (and finished) this process that I haven’t briefly considered just going back to the ease of popping a binky in her mouth and righting the world — or at least sleep-times. But wavering at any point in the process will only make the inevitable withdrawal from the binky worse for all parties involved.

Well, I hope this is helpful to someone somewhere. I would love to hear stories of successes and even failures. So please share your experiences in the comments if you give it a whirl!

The Debinkification Deconstructed by MushBrain, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mushbrain.net.