dummy fairy for 5 year old - advice please!

[monairethu]

hi. so we are finally going to bite the bullet and do what we should have done a long time ago - take our 5 year olds dummy away. we're going to do a dummy fairy thing with a little letter and small gifts each morning with something bigger after a week or so. what we can't decide on is if we take it in the middle of the night one night without warning (leaving a note) or if we do a little note a few days before so it doesn't come as a huge shock. she is really really attached to it so we're really nervous about the whole thing - and feel a bit cruel to take it away if i'm being honest. any tips on what has worked for other parents would be great!

My DD was younger but we just went for it. Explained what was going to happen and got rid of them all to stop is backing down. We had 2 disturbed nights with extra cuddles required and then that was it! At 5, your DD is old enough to be reasoned with. Be brave, she will be fine x

My dd was very attached to hers, we started by not giving her it in the day, just at bedtime (which she adjusted to much better than expected, no fuss at all), then stopped giving it to her at night after a few months. Struggled to nod off for the first couple of nights but was then fine. My sister did the dummy fairy, out them all on the washing line one night and a new toy was pegged there the next morning.

thanks for your replies. she hasn't had it during the day since she was about two and a half but we have had a struggle to kick the night time habit! have just bought in a load of dummy fairy gifts so fingers crossed!

Oh please don't just take it off her in the night. Try to make it as exciting as possible and let her gather then up and put them in a special bag to leave out.

A couple of rough nights but then she'll be ok

Or if you've got a lots of gifts then maybe she could leave out one dummy a night until they've all gone (so less significant than leaving all of them!)

A friend when persuading her DS to give up the dummies planted them in the garden with her daughter and when she was in bed planted a huge flowering bush to show what had grown. If the dummy fairy does not work this may be an approach to try, good luck

Your dd is you don't need the fairy thing just do a trade bribe with my eldest she chose to get a barbie scooter.

My youngest wouldn't trade and just sucked her thumb if we took the dummies away, at 7 she has given them up of her own accord I think she can't actually suck them properly anymore.

Ds1 was 4 when the dummy fairy came. I had mentioned the dummy fairy a few times and told him that when he was a big boy, the dummy fairy would come to take his dummies for all the tiny little babies who need them more, and in return she would leave him a present. He was quite excited about the whole idea. I told him we would let her come one night the following week. We made a big thing of it and gathered up his dummies at bedtime and left them by the fireplace in the living room (where Santa leaves the Christmas sacks!), and he went to bed without one all excited about the fairy coming during the night. I made sure to get him a present he would really like (WallE toys, his 'thing' at the time). We had two nights of him being a bit subdued at bed and saying he wanted a dummy, but I reminded him that he had his WallE toys now instead, and they sat by his bed at night while he slept. All went pretty smoothly! Definitely make a big deal of it, like Christmas! I'm not sure that a present is necessary daily though - maybe just one present that she would really love?

When DS3 was ready to give up his dummies - well I felt he was, he wasn't so sure. I asked him what he would like santa to bring him (it was june but hey, whatever works!) He wanted a real working vacuum cleaner (he was utterly obsessed with them). I went to argos and bought one of their cheapy ones and wrote a lovely letter from Santa to go with it. We gathered all his dummies together, parcelled them up and sent them to my parents santa. I snuck into his bedroom and left the vaccum cleaner on his bed then put the letter from santa behind the door as we left to walk to the post office. Once we'd posted them and got home we 'found' the letter' and I read it to DS and it said there was a present upstairs for him. He raced upstairs and was so happy :D He cried the first night and then again the second night but wasn't sad enough to want to send his hoover back :D

Maybe take her to a toy shop or Build a Bear and get her to choose a new cuddly toy to make her feel better when she misses it?

I have just been on holiday in Iceland and at one of a small zoos, there was a tree full of dummies. The parents take their child there when they are ready and leave the dummy for a newborn animal. I thought it was a fantastic idea. If your daughter is 5, she is old enough to understand and maybe you could pack up the dummy in a box and post it to London Zoo for one of their newborn animals? (I am sure you could check on the website to see if there are new super cute animals). Just an idea!

I do like the build a bear idea!