Goodbye sucky bunny

I've had a parenting win! Miss 3 never had dummies as a baby. We were fortunate in that she basically slept for the first month of her life and it never occurred to me to give her one later on. Lucky I know.

However, when she was a bit older, she did get into the habit of taking a bunny to bed and she sucked it to death. I'm not talking about a slight nibble followed by a cuddle, I'm talking she put the entire ear in her mouth and left it there all night. Actually, when the ear became too soggy she would move on to a foot and by the morning each limb would be a disgusting mess. It didn't really bother me except when she had a cold and I genuinely wondered how on earth she was managing to breathe with a blocked nose and effectively a gag in her mouth.

There used to be three different bunnies which rotated through and she didn't appear to have a preference. Then the stuffing started to come out of one of the bunny legs and despite my extreme efforts to actually sew socks on, this bunny was no longer favoured. Apparently the socks weren't appropriate sucking texture. I had hoped this was the beginning of giving up on the sucking but she just favoured the other two bunnies.

The dependence on bunny had increased lately. About a year ago, if we'd gone away for the weekend I probably wouldn't have been too worried about not taking a bunny but more recently there has been a favourite bunny required for every nap and sleep.  This poor bunny has actually been titled Sucky Bunny and there have been many discussions about perhaps Sucky could just be Cuddly tonight but this suggestion had never been received well with comments such as, "maybe when I'm four."

Then the other night as I said goodnight I commented Sucky was particularly pungent and that we really must give her a wash. Miss 3 lept out of bed and put her straight into the washing. I hadn't actually intended that to happen but I seized the opportunity to say that if she was happy to go to bed without Sucky then tomorrow we would find a special burrow for Sucky to live in and that she wouldn't suck on any bunnies anymore.

She was totally on board. She slept completely fine. The next day when I brought in the washing I showed her that Sucky was all clean and she happily put her away in a drawer in her bedroom. I told her I was proud of her. She told me she was proud of herself.  We had a hug. It was like some kind of parenting poetry. I even rewarded her by letting her choose a new toy when we were out later that day. She chose a Tasmanian Devil which I'm pleased to say has remained suck free.