Dummy advice

[LJFMO2]

My daughter is 14 months, she has only ever had a dummy to sleep which a lot of people says great but I actually am not so sure as it's a strong sleep association BUT either way this is the route we've gone down and it's worked for us. Iv started to not give her a dummy in the car and pram in she's due a nap and see if she will drift off with out one which is working 50% of the time. But in the cot she points to where there kept before she's even put down.

She's still young and I'm not in any desperate need to take it away but I was just hoping for some tips for when it's time!

When I took the dummies of my little on I used them as money ( if that makes any sense🤣) when we went to the shop and he would say or point to something he wanted I would say ..... you want that book, well that costs 2 dummies ....... oooo you want that fireman Sam fire engine that’s 4 dummies. And he would hand them over. It’s worked well as in I had no battle to remove them from the house he was happy to give them up. Then at night we would go up to bed I’d curl up on his bed with him and a bottle of warm milk and read a story and he would drift of sucking his bottle ( one of those with a straw)

I think the advice is to get rid of dummies by 1yr, as it starts affecting teeth, speech, eating etc, so I'd ditch them if i were you. DSiL just put them all in the bin one day and rode out the next few days of whining, though you could be more gradual if you wanted to be gentle.

I was told by a speech therapist friend that it only affects speech if the dummy is in all the time, and when they are babbling? That it's okay to use it for sleep? And my son's dentist said when I asked her at his forst appointment recently that thumb sucking is much worse than a dummy for teeth and that as long as we don't give him a bottle to take to bed with him he's fine??

I love the idea of dummy as money!