Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

Original poster

Help my 3.5 year old has decided she needs a dummy

14 replies

mummyloveslucy · 26/08/2008 19:28

My daughter is 3.5 years old and has never had a dummy. (for no other reason than she just didn't need one).
She has a baby cousen of 4 months old and she has regressed a bit since he was born. She has been asking for a dummy, because he has one. The other day she was very upset in boots because we refused to buy her this pink dummy. Today we went to see her baby cousen and realised that she has taken one of his dummies. She was sucking it in the car on the way home, so I thought I'll just ignore it. She wanted it to go to sleep with so my husband gave it to her to "keep her happy"
What should we do about this if it becomes a regular thing? She is very tall for her age and looks rediculus sucking a dummy. She already has speech problems and I'm worried that this won't help.
Should we carry on ignoring it and giving her no attention, or should we be strict and take it away?.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

PuppyMonkey · 26/08/2008 19:30

Just say no?

CarGirl · 26/08/2008 19:33

I think it will be a very short phase, tell her she can have it for bed time only and to keep it under her pillow, I'm 99% certain she'll get bored of it very quickly.

Romy7 · 26/08/2008 19:33

take it away. or tell her she has to have pureed food and no sweets, because baby's don't get to. and she can't walk, can't play in the garden, can't watch tv etc etc ad infinitum. (unless she'd milk that for all it was worth, in which case, just take it away. i'd have made a really big deal how baby cousin has probably cried herself to sleep/ still crying now because she stole it, and forced her to watch you put it in an envelope with your sister's address on lol)

kiskidee · 26/08/2008 19:37

i'd give her a dummy. the novelty will soon wear off.

Original poster

mummyloveslucy · 26/08/2008 19:39

puppymonkey- You're right.

If she knows that I don't like it, she will do it even more. (she's a bit like that at the moment).

OP posts:

RedHead81 · 26/08/2008 19:44

I'd take it away.
Tell her the tooth fairy took it away because she was scared that her teeth would fall out too soon - or something like that. It's ok for babies because they haven't got teeth???? But her teeth might get hurt????
just an idea...

And with re. Romy7's point - she stole it - and it could be a good lesson that stealing is wrong.

KnickersOnMaHead · 26/08/2008 19:50

Message withdrawn

ScummyMummy · 26/08/2008 19:53

I would definitely take it away. She has managed this long without one so it shouldn't be a big deal. But if it is so be it- you said no and she's taken matters into her own hands and overturned your decision! I'm no big disciplinarian or anything and she's only little but she does needs to learn that you're the one who's in charge and makes the rules, I reckon.

FiveGoMadInDorset · 26/08/2008 19:53

It will be short lived, DD started putting wooden mushrooms in her mouth (I know) like dummies when whe went to nursery (she has never had one) her baby brother does and she will take his and put it in her mouth but then forgets about it.

Original poster

mummyloveslucy · 26/08/2008 19:55

Thanks everyone, some really good ideas.

She gets a touch of the green eyed monster every time she sees him, especially if my husband or I make a fuss of him.

OP posts:

lizandlulu · 26/08/2008 20:04

i have had this exact same thing (minus the babu cousin) my dd is 2.10 and never had a dummy but was recently fascinated with them. she had a doll with a child size dummy around its neck which she detetched and started to suck. i was not impressed, after all my hard work fending off my mother and her efforts to give dd a dummy, she was regressing herself!

a few days into this she also decided she wanted a blanket all the time

i tried to keep the blanket to a minimum as she wanted to take it out with her all the time, this was about 6 months ago.

she is still fascinated with dummys but i got rid of all the ones she could actuallt suck. she has a couple of dolls dummys, i think they are baby born which are just a hard bobble type bit that she does put into her mouth, but cant actually suck on them, but these do now tend to stay with the dolls.

i just tried to leave them at home all the time, or hide them at night hoping she would forget about them when she got up. whic she is doing now.

but it was really heartbreaking for me to she her sucking away at a dummy when we have gone all this time without needing one.

lizandlulu · 26/08/2008 20:05

it is hard to decide weather to not make a big deal out of it cause the more you say no the more they want it.

lizandlulu · 26/08/2008 20:07

my dd also went out sucking on a wine bottle stopper, people were acutally pointing and laughing. that had to go but even when she sees it now she says,' my dummy, my need it!'

FiveGoMadInDorset · 26/08/2008 20:40

Lizandlulu, dd does that as well

Flip