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Behaviour/development

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

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Original poster

Please help me get rid of this blooming dummy!

17 replies

JamAndPeanutButter · 29/06/2010 13:09

Its my own fault... I always intended to wean DS1 off his dummy by 6 months... which became 12 months... 18 months... he's now 2 and a half and although he understands the dummy is only for bedtime he still can't go to sleep without it and if he loses it in the night he cries and cries until I go in and scrabble around under the bed to retrieve it. I feel he really is too old for it now but my attempts to explain this to him are met with a flat "No Mummy. I need it" (repeated at escalating pitch and volume)

Can anyone help me?! Any tried and tested MN strategies?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

BeerTricksPotter · 29/06/2010 13:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

flowerybeanbag · 29/06/2010 13:17

I took DS1's away at 8mo and will probably do the same with DS2 shortly, but in your situation I'd probably try bribery.

Fantastic toy he will not be able to resist?

Telesales650 · 29/06/2010 13:22

When my children were little and two out of the three used a dummy I hit upon the birds in the garden ie Mother Robin and her baby chicks.
Together we left the dummy by a special place where Mother Robin was going to collect it for her baby chicks. The next day we went to check and low and behold the dummy had gone, keep emphasising that Mother Robin needed it and heap plenty of praise on your son.
This did work very easily at the same age as your son.

Acanthus · 29/06/2010 13:25

DS2 sucked his thumb, but just stopped when he was 2 yo.

london0hull4 · 29/06/2010 13:58

When DS was 2.5 we started talking (a lot) about the dummy fairy. DS understood that when the dummy fairy could see that he was a "big boy", she would come to collect his dummies and take them for the babies (who needed them more). In their place, we told him the dummy fairy would leave him a present. We let DS choose a present (from the Argos catalogue ) and said we would let the dummy fairy know what he'd chosen.

Then, on the designated day, we wrapped the present and an empty box in the same wrapping paper and put them next to his bed ready for when he woke in the morning. He was so excited at getting the present and having been designated a "big boy" that he happily went around the house and collected all his dummies together and put them in the box for the dummy fairy to take to the babies.

We had a couple of instances when he cried for his dummy in the following days but he forgot all about it very quickly.

ilikemrclooney · 29/06/2010 21:53

My DS who is three gave up his dummy a few months ago. I was started to panic a bit about hs teeth cos he had it in all night although he recently went to the dentist and she said they were fine so was possibly worrying for no reason. Anyway, his friend brought in a new CD player to nursery for 'treasue time' and DS was very impressed with it. I offered to buy him one if he gave up his dummies and he wanted it so much he agreed. It was probably the only thing he has ever wanted enough so i realised i needed to seize the moment, otherwise he would have been six and i would havve been swopping it for a playstation or something! It took him a very long time to fall asleep for a good few weeks which was hard and i did feel sorry for him cos he really wanted to go to sleep but couldn't. It helped that he has a much loved cuddly so still had that. DS would never have been ready to volunteer to give it up, or not till he was very big anyway but he was definately ready to and although i felt bad that he still had a dummy at three i am glad, in retrospect that we waited because it was less traumatic than I thought it would be.

LittleMissNorty · 29/06/2010 21:57

The dummy fairy also visited our house a couple of weeks before DDs 3rd birthday to take her dummies for all the babies as she was now a big girl

We had a couple of disturbed evenings but she was fine within a couple of days.

tbh I was DREADING it, but she coped so much better than I expected.

And she loved the bike the dummy fairy gve her for her birthday.

Iggisonthesofa · 29/06/2010 22:20

I didn't wean DS off bf, he just stopped himself, and that's my plan for the dummies too. If he still has one at 4 or 5 I suppose I might be back on here to eat my words!
I don't see any reason (unless dentist says otherwise which he hasn't) to deprive DS of something that helps him sleep so well.

Karoleann · 29/06/2010 22:26

If its only for bedtime I wouldn't worry too much. Its went they're walking around sucking it during the day it looks/is bad IMO.
I'd get more dummies and put them in the bed so he can find them.

I got sick of DS1's dummy at 20 months (was heavily pregnant and just threw them in the bin) he'd forgotten about them in a couple of days
DS2 was 10months and started waking for dummy - only one night of wahhhhh.
Good luck whatever you decide

arena · 30/06/2010 12:58

A friend of mine told me to snip the top of the dummy off, so thats what i did. He got fed up about a short time and gave the dummy back to me saying he did'nt want it anymore.

Good luck

MrsJohnDeere · 30/06/2010 13:09

I made a hole in the dummy so that it was no longer pleasant to suck. Ds took it, put it in his mouth, then went 'yuk' and handed it back to me.
Seem to recall a little present the next morning too as a reward for getting through the night without it.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 30/06/2010 13:16

I just collected all of DS's dummies up and chucked them. The first night was hell for a couple of hours but after that he never mentioned them again. This was about 2 months before his sister was born, she has dummies now and ive seen him try them out and pull a face!

TeeBee · 30/06/2010 16:51

Yep, Amazing, that's what I did. Just threw them in the bin - done. Couple of nights of whinging but cold turkey worked for us.

pranma · 30/06/2010 17:26

dgs sent his to 'the dummy lady' for the little babies because he was a big boy now.He was so upset for first 2 nights that dummy lady brought a new one!The trouble was that the only one she had was a pink newborn one with a teddy on the end of it.He never sucked it once and there was no more talk of dummies.

flo136 · 30/06/2010 23:44

Our son is two and a half and still uses dummies for sleeps.

We have used a dummy chain by Nuk since he was 1 year old because he always got upset when he lost his dummy.

But I heard a great tip: cut the end off it. so he gets his dummy but not the soothing part, and he might chuck it away in digust!

Another is hang it on the tree for Santa to take away. We are moving down sizes to baby size dummies in rediness for getting rid of it.

Jessiemich2010 · 01/07/2010 20:07

I managed to convince my dd1 that the fairies in the garden needed them for their babies and by her giving them one every day they would give her a little wish lol by the time she was 2 she didn't have any and she said mummy dummy gone now I got eeyore now for bed lol

knickers0nmyhead · 01/07/2010 20:10

cold turkey! Suggested to two friends who both did it and had success.

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