End of an era

My daughter has had the habit of sucking two fingers on her left hand since she was two months old. She uses it for comfort, to fall asleep, and when she is relaxing (watching a movie, reading a book, etc). We have been trying to get her to stop by reminding her whenever we see her do it. But that has been going on for about a year and she still does it more than ever. We were afraid she would start getting teased at school, and her teacher mentioned it to me, so we decided to step in to help her quit for good.

We rubbed nasty tasting stuff on her fingers and let her have an ice cube in a washcloth to suck on if she felt like she needed it. I thought for sure she would have a fit trying to fall asleep or revert back to the fingers in the middle of the night, but she actually did great. She protested about the stuff on her fingers and freaked out thinking she wouldn't be able to fall asleep - but she did and it worked fine. I checked on her a couple of times during the first night and she was sound asleep with her hands under the pillow! She has been doing great during the day too and we are so proud of her.

I feel like this is the last part of her "babyhood" - like this will be the end of an era and it is kind of sad. But I know it needs to be done so she can proceed with her development.