Dummies (my shame)

[Spacehoppa]

My three year old still uses a dummy every day. Has anyne any ideas to get her out of the habit?

DD was off her dummies by two, she is 3.5 now. But she would still have a dummy all the time given half a chance and tries to steal DS's quite often.

I would start by restricting it to bedtime/ nap if she has one. DS has his only for sleep too, at 20m. Leave it under the pillow for bedtime later.

At three she is old enough to understand concepts like leaving it for the dummy fairy who will leave ?sparkly pink stickers/a fancy new cup/ a horrible toy she would love, instead. Then prepare for a few grizzly days/nights.

I think you are right to tackle it, as they tend to talk 'around' the dummy as they get older and I have seen a couple of children with a big dummy shaped gap in their teeth when still using one at 3/4yo.

My local Childrens Centre also does a dummy drop - where you take the dummy and swap it for a doidy cup

Definitely agree with above - you need to go cold turkey on the daytime dummy and let her have it only for sleeping. In a few weeks time the dummy fairy can deal with the nighttime ones as suggested.

I have weaned 18mo DS off his daytime dummy but will tackle the naptime one when he's a bit older.

I am currently steeling myself to drop nightime dummies for both DS. I got DS1 to drop his dummy during the day from a tip I'm sure I read on here. Just told him dummies were for sleep and were not to come downstairs. If he wanted the dummy he had to have it upstairs. After a couple of trips upstairs for a quick 'fix' he soon became bored on his own and came back downstairs. This took a couple of days. He was about 3 at the time.

We went for the psychological manipulation route. We started off by working out a few things that DD wanted to do, and then started saying things like "when you're a big girl, you won't have dummies any more", "big girls don't have dummies" and "when you're a big girl you can.... (in our case it was go to ballet lessons).

After a few weeks, DD came in one day and declared that she was now a 'big girl', and ready to give up her dummies s she could go to ballet lessons. We rounded them up, threw them in the bin and that was that.

She asked for them once after that. To which, I reminded her that she was now a big girl that went to ballet instead, and she didn't ask again.

This was the girl who was totally addicted to her dummy!

I did the same thing when DD was 28mths. She was desperate for a scooter but told her she would only get one if she threw away her dummies. One day she threw them in the bin in the park and we went straight off to get the scooter. She did ask me to go back to the bin a week or so later and 10mths later she asked me the other day whether she could return the scooter for her dummy. BUT the nights were not as bad as I thought, good luck.

Dd1 was 5 when she gave up her dummy at night .

Dd2 is 4 and still has a dummy at night but she has Autism and taking it away from her is not worth the hastle.(she only has it at bed time).

Thanks for all of your help. The days of the dummy are numbered...