should i take the dummy away??

[bubblepop]

my fourth child is really attatched to her dummy, she's 3 months old. none of the others were really bothered about their dummys and i never had cause to use them after 3 months. the problem is, im now having to get up in the night to replace the lost dummy!i can hear her snuffling around in her cot and desperately looking for it! she does'nt seem to be able to settle herself back down without it. what do i do? do i keep getting up and putting it back in, or try and wean her off it now? i don't want to keep doing this until she's two!!

Personally i would go cold turkey if you don't want to be doing this for the next innumeral months ahead, she needs to have a new que that says sleep so i would get a muslin to settle her with for a few days then remove the dummy from the picture, at this age they adapt really quickly.

But remember if you take it away and then give it back it will be much harder to take away again.

get rid now, earlier the better I think.

I was in and out with dd1 until she was 12 months bobbing the damn thing in, then she had a bad cold and couldn't breath with it in, so we got rid of it by default really.

Can you get her a snuggle type teddy?

I was in and out for a while with DS during the night and thought of giving it up. But he's sleeping through fine now (at 10 months), he either doesn't lose it or else he finds it himself.

I got rid of ds's dummy at 4 months but he started sucking his thumb instead.

When I tried giving the dummy back as I thought at least I could control that, he just spat it out. By all means go cold turkey but if she loves sucking be prepared for the possibility of her sucking her thumb instead. At least you won't have to get up to put it back in though

....oh dear and what do I do with a 21/2 and 31/2 who still have their dummies at night?

champagne, I had a friend with a similar problem although her dd almost 4. They decided to time it at Christmas so that Father Christmas would take the dummy and leave presents instead. Didn't work initially but 2 months later all was sorted.

Any birthdays coming up? How about Easter Bunny taking the dummy? (probably won't work with the youngest one though)

Giving them for a friend's baby to (pretend) to use??

My friend just whittled it down to 1 and then it went missing one night, not by choice but after a bit he stopped asking and she found it in the bedding later that week and just binned it (son not in room) and hasn't looked back, tho his girl mate still has hers over a year on from this and he isn't fussed.

Easter Bunny coming up!! Thank you.

Do it now!!! I wish I had.

This is an interesting thread - my ds1 is 2 1/2 and still has his and doesn't look like losing interest (in fact he is asking for it now although he only gets it at night). Any hints?

when my ds was about 2 and a bit i gradually tried to tell him that a dummy was 'for little children' and he was getting such a big boy now. His highlight of the week was watching the bin men collecting rubbish and ... you guess, we went outside one day, i winked at the bin man and suggested he would pass his dummy over to the man who would take it to the tip for him! He was so pleased with himself and therefor never asked for it ever again. Let's hope my dd likes watching outside on collection day when she's a bit older!

Annobal go for it! My dd was 2.5 when the dummy fairy paid us a visit. The first night was terrible- totally grieving for the damn thing then each night got easier. I think that unless you can get rid of it very young you are stuffed until they are old enough to reason with.