Grace seems to be very eager to embrace her independence and freedom recently. Ever since she started toddling, she can’t wait to take off at every opportunity. She will shrug away our offer to hold her hand and insist on walking on her own without any assistance. This is actually more backbreaking than having to carry her as we have to scamper after her.

My fear of weaning her from nursing proves to be unfounded. She actually weaned herself off right after she turned one. Probably she finds nursing too infantile for her now that she is a toddler.

Just a few entries back, I wrote about the trauma of weaning Grace off her night feeds. Apparently, she’s in the process of weaning herself off the night feeds too. She has her last feed at 9.30p.m everyday, sleeps before 10p.m and usually wakes up between 4.30am and 6am for a milk feed. On good days, she falls back to sleep. Otherwise, she will be very eager to begin her day as early as 6am. Theoretically, as long as a baby sleeps through 6-8 hours, that’s considered sleeping through the night. However, a part of me still greedily wishes that she will sleep for a longer stretch. Let’s see if the situation improves by the end of the year.

We have one more battle to fight. The Husband and I think this is going to be a BIG one. I shall call this “Mission Impossible – The Pacifier”. Although she only takes the pacifier to soothe herself to sleep, it seems that she's rather reliant on it at the moment. We don’t know when and how we are going to do it. I did some reading up on strategies to wean babies off the pacifier. However, I have my apprehensions as I have come to realise that there is usually a clear divergence between theory and reality. Without fail, the authors will include infamous disclaimers such as “Each baby is unique” or “It will vary from baby to baby”. I may just throw those theories out of the window and go with my instincts.

A note of caution to any parent-to-be who happens to read this post:
The pacifier is truly an ingenious invention. It soothes the parents more than the baby. With the pacifier, there’s peace in the household, but be mindful that this is just a short respite. So consider yourself warned. Don’t ask for trouble unless trouble troubles you!