Have you heard of the Mo-Mo fairy?

I have to tell the story of the Mo-Mo's. All our kids became attached to the Soothie brand of pacifier. One of the only pacifier attachments I could fit to fit them had an Elmo on it. Here is a picture of Sam with his "suckie" when he was only a few weeks old.


Well when Sam started to talk a bit he couldn't say suckie, instead he started to say mo-mo, because of the Elmo attachment. And that is what we all started to call them. Ben and Carlee called them that as well, even though theirs had Pooh attachments. Here they are with theirs at about 2 1/2 months old.

They were never really allowed to have their mo-mos except for sleeping or in their carseats. Most mornings or after naps we collected them and put them out of reach. But there were times that they managed to get them, such as this last Christmas Day after naptime. They are past the board books stage and were getting actual story books for Christmas. When I looked at this photo I suddenly had visions of them in high school with their mo-mos. YIKES it was time to get rid of them. I also started to notice that Sam's top front teeth were really starting to be pushed out, he was getting a really bad overbite. it was now a dental issue too - they needed to go.

But that of course is much easier said than done. They were very very attached to them and needed them to go to sleep. If they woke up in the night the only thing they looked for was their mo-mos. We knew it would not be an easy thing to accomplish. But I had seen episodes of the SuperNanny show where she used the Binky Fairy concept and thought that it could work for us. Now it was just the timing.

We waited for my mom to arrive and told her what we had in mind, thinking that if it was so terrible that at least we would have one adult per heartbroken child. And so for weeks I had been talking about the Mo-mo fairy, and that she comes to houses and gets mo-mos from big kids who don't need them anymore and takes them to sad babies to help them to be happy. I loved it when we were in a store and we heard a crying baby - I told them that the Mo-mo fairy would soon take that baby a Mo-mo. Of course they intrigued.

One day Daddy made a big announcement that he heard that the Mo-mo fairy was in the neighborhood and maybe she would be coming to our house. But they all had to go upstairs and be very quiet or they would scare her away. This of course was so that I could hide the presents and get things set up. When I was ready I began to make some loud noises in the kitchen, banging pot lids and things like that. My mom said to them, Oh maybe that is the Mo-mo fairy, to which Carlee replied very seriously "No, that's just Mama in the kitchen". Haha first attempt failed.

Anyway, they finally came down to find cards for them that explained she needed Mo-mos for babies and if they were ready they could put them in a bag and when they did they would get a surprise. Of course they all did and they got these for sleeping with...





Then we had a party and all seemed fine. Until bedtime - the worst night of screaming and crying ever! The next night at bedtime was still pretty bad but somewhat better. Sam and Carlee were then fine and just needed a bit of comforting during the night for a few nights. Ben had some really bad nights when he would wake up in the middle of the night and could not be comforted for an hour or two. It was tough but was not as bad as I thought it could have been. We survived and so did they. Hooray NO MORE Mo-Mos!!!!

Using this concept worked because we just didn't take the mo-mos away, instead the kids gave them away to help the babies. I think that is what was the key. The crying at bedtime and at night was them getting over their comfort habit. We knew that it would be tough for them to break the habit, especially for Ben because he was the most attached to his mo-mo. But they are better off and Sam's teeth have already improved.