Dummy Disaster!!

[CareerCoach]

Does anyone have any tried and tested methods of getting rid of the dummy? Our little girl is 5 months old and driving us mad at sleep time as she keeps putting it out, and in,out and in, dropping it and crying...it's time it went but we don't fancy doing it cold turkey, help.

cold turkey is the way to go, especially with such a little one! Sorry to say what you don't want to hear!

good luck career, it would help you to be strong about it if you'd seen the little girl I did today, about five years old, with a dummy plugged in her mouth, playing in a playground, running about...Strrrrange to see!

There must be some way to make it easier surely...if you do go cold turkey how long does it take roughly? Definitely don't want her to be toddling with a dummy plugged in!

We did cold turkey, but DD was much older - 2 years - so we could discuss it before hand and she could understand why her comforter was being taken away. However she rarely had a dummy at any other time than sleep/nap times - only if ill - and she was never allowed to walk around or talk with it in.

No. I'm too lazy. They'll give it up in their own time. DD1 only took it at night and naptime. She only recently gave it up - she'll be 3 in a couple of weeks.

At age 2, cold turkey took just the one night. She was told that BIL's new cat needed it as he was missing his friends. We'd been there that weekend and kleft it behind.

Yes I've heard that if you wait until they can understand you then it is easier to withdraw it, something along the lines of the dummy fairy coming to take it and leaving a gift in its place. She only has it at nap time but it is the putting it in and out that is really wearing when she drops it, plus it stops her going to sleep when she is playing around with it.

Get one of those clips to the end of the dummy that attaches to their clothes and your baby will soon learn to find it by themself in the night and won't call you to put it back in. She's very little, let her have it for a bit longer. I definitely support use restricted to naptimes, otherwise it stunts speech development and their teeth. My son (2) has his naptimes and nighttime only. It was a battle to get it down to these times but he understands (although he is strategising daily on how to get to the top cupboard where its kept by piling up chairs and anything solid!) 'Dummy is for bedtime' is the rule. I know he should give it up but, (dummy fairy visit iminent!) he is just 2 and still a baby and if he wants to stay a baby for a little longer then I don't think its a problem.

My mum had a good trick to restrict our dummy use - we were only allowed it when lying down. so we could have it at any time but we had to lie in our cot - which was really boring, so eventually we didn't bother.

If you really want to get rid, then I suppose cold-turkey is the way to go.
Has she not had a dummy very long or has she got a cold? If she keeps taking it out and dropping it, either she's not got the hang of sucking it or she doesn't really want it for some reason. I've had times when the baby acted as though they were being fobbed off with a dummy and would spit it out, but when tired and just feeling sucky would happily accept it. If she's struggling to keep it in then sounds like she's not got the hang of it (although at 5m would have thought she'd be able to keep a dummy in if she wanted to)

I couldn't face cold turkey at that stage, so I put about 10 of them in the cot, so that DD could find another one.

Now you mention it she does have a cold, which I suppose is why she keeps pulling it out, although she is also playing with it a bit. I like the idea of attaching it to one of those clips so she knows where it is, could be a plan.

I have no problem with her using it at nap times only, which is where we are now but it would be nice to think we could stop using it sooner rather than later.

Well my ds is 3.5 and still has his plug . We have tried the cold turkey, throwing them in the bin, giving them to the fairy etc etc etc but he seems to have a stash squirrelled away and they just keep coming back! I think he steals them from his cousins......

I'm ashamed.

We recently went cold turkey with DS 18mths, it only took 2 days and a lot of self restraint on our part. First nap without dummy involved 45mins of continuous very loud screaming which then gradually decreased over the next few days. We had only used it for naps and now it's like the dummy never existed for DS. I would like to point out that DH made himself very scarce during these couple of days, typical.

I was really anti dummy................until I had a baby of my own

Snap - I had 45 mins too but it was a distant memory after about 2 days. She's 14 mnths and it did take a lot of resolve.

We told our 3 year old that the dummy fairy came on her 3rd birthday and took all of her dummies for the new babies in the hospital. We looked for presents the week before her 3rd birthday and she put them all out and found her presents in the morning and was thrilled that she had been visited by the fairy. She has never mentioned her dummies/plugs again. Its worth a try and we did start to tell her from about 2½ onwards so she new what was coming.