Seeking advice on toddler transitions

Sigh. . .

We're taking Jessica's binkies away this weekend. Richard & I are binkie dependant parents. We pushed a binkie on her, when she would have been fine without. Now she's an addict. Actually, I don't regret pushing the binkie. She's learned to self-soothe and she's only had it for sleeping. Well, until recently. Now she fishes one out of her crib anytime she gets her feelings hurt. I'm completely unwilling to have a two year old and a baby with binkies, so Jessica's binkies have got to go.

Any advice? It's been a few years since we made this transition with Kate and she was easy peasy. We thought about having a binkie party and tying the binkies to helium balloons & watch them go bye-bye. But, that could potentially be traumatic. So, we're going with the same old, cut the nipple, tell her they're broken & tell her to throw them away.

Amber & Kate are on Spring Break from Thursday through Monday. We're anticipating some lost sleep, so the timing seems ideal. We don't have plans to go anywhere anyway.

We toyed with the idea of setting up her big girl bed & letting her choose to sleep in it without binkies, but opted for one transition at a time. Amber will move into the smaller bedroom with the baby & Jessica will move in with Kate. Rich suggested moving Jessica into the big bed in her own room; then once she can go to bed without too much goofing or escaping, move her in with Kate. I don't know what's best. That's just one more transition. Right now we put Amber & Kate to bed at 8:00. Kate needs to be asleep by 8:15ish. Amber is usually awake until 9:30 or 10:00 (I swear, It's a Mills thing). I'm eager to move Amber. I feel like Kate goes to kindergarten tired most days.

I'd love to hear any suggestions on taking away binkies and transitioning from cribs to beds.

April 3rd update

We've made it through three binkie-less days. Jessica is happy and well-rested, although she feels that bedtime and nap time are traumatic. The first night she cried for about half and hour and then fell asleep. She cried off and on between 10:00 & 12:00, then slept soundly the rest of the night. When I got her out of her crib in the morning I found her with a binkie in her mouth. Apparently, she searched her crib more thoroughly than I. (I rounded up 8 binkies!, 9 with her find. No kidding we're binkie dependant parents!). She cries for a shorter period of time each time we put her down & is even sleeping through the night. Whew! Hopefully she'll believe binkies were from her baby days when we give one to her baby brother in July.