Dummy Help

[Sparklebum]

We recently adopted a 2 1\2 year old who still has a dummy. It was a big comfort to him when he first moved so we continued with it. As of Monday this week we now only give him the dummy at bedtime, and he happily gives me it to look after when he gets up in the morning. This is great, however, he has started sucking his clothes and sometimes his thumb since then.

Any suggestions how to discourage this or should I assume he still needs the comfort of the dummy? So soon in to placement (12 weeks) I don't want to distress him but he genuinely doesn't seem distressed but has simply moved on to clothes sucking!!

I wouldn't worry about the dummy in this case, forget about it, give him a chance to settle in,

Clothes sucking is terrible hard to break, so I would leave the dummy until he won't seek a replacement.

Thanks for the advice. I'll re think the dummy situation. You are right of course, it's early days.

Good luck, the more you relax the quicker all the little things will come together.

oh if he has started clothes sucking, take any toggles off cords in hoody type tops, as he might chip a tooth or manage to eat one, I just use to take the cord out, and buttons on sleeves.

Try not to use the word "don't", as that make it irresistible to do the action, go for lets do this ....

I use to say, oh dear, your top is wet, and quickly, positively change him/them into a new one, or they get use to sitting in soggy clothes and they stop noticing,

So if you change them, they think , oh it wasn't nice having the soggy top, this one much nicer, eventually they decide getting changed is a bother, easier to not get ones self soggy in the first place, once they stop every now and then they revert to clothes chewing.

It's always a long process, but if handled gently goes faster than if tackled

it's quite common especially in children who have like your son had early extra action,

It's just self comforting, so important to them.