When to take away a dummy

[jonesyyy]

I've read a few threads on here recently about parents wanting to take away a dummy from their DCs and it got me thinking.

My 3 month old DS has a dummy, he doesn't really use it much, only at night when sleeping and even then it falls out and he rarely cries to have it back. Sometimes during the day he will have it but it usually falls out then also.

I am aware he's still really young, but I don't want him to become too attached to the dummy as he gets olde. I never had one (thumb sucker), but my mum tells me my brother had his until he was 4 and it was very difficult to take away from him.

From your experience, when is the easiest/best time to take it away?

Speech therapists will tell you before 1. Because dummies are bad for the development of their mouth shape or something (scientific!) and also prevent early language formation if left in mouths during the day. I hope a speech therapist can come along and elucidate. But basically dummies during the day for toddlers are a bad idea.

We were told 6 months as it's a bad habit rather than a need afterwards. He did love his dummy so it took till 8 months for us to work up the courage to take it away. It was about 2 weeks of hard work.

At 3 months old I wouldn't worry too much about it just yet. Especially if you just keep it to sleep time. The problems with them are when parents let their kids have them in their mouth non-stop all day and night.

Just keep it for sleep and don't overly rely on it to constantly appease your DC and you'll be fine.

Babies and toddlers have the need to suckle - some more, some less. In our culture, where kids aren't breastfed as frequently as "nature intended" and not as long either, the dummy takes the nipples' role. So I wouldn't stress about it.

My daughter mostly refused the dummy as a baby, which was horror, because she ended up hanging on my breast the whole night, I could hardly move. I stopped breastfeeding when she turned 1 and then she started taking the dummy - and had it until she was 5! According to a dentist she's been to at age 4, it's fine as long as it's gone as soon as the first teeth start getting loose.
She was only allowed to have it when sleeping from around 2 years old and there was certainly no talking with a dummy in her mouth!

My son will be 2 very soon and has a dummy. Since a 1-2 months only when sleeping - the transtition wasn't a problem at all. From 17 or 18 months I told him to take his dummy out of his mouth when talking, which he understood to do pretty quickly.

My daughter never had any troubles with her speech and so far with my son it doesn't seem like it either. Neither did my daughter have any problems with her teeth.
I also think there is a difference between using a dummy only when sleeping and using it during the day. I often see 3-5 year olds running around with a dummy and talking with a dummy in their mouths, and find this weird. And in those cases I understand that it might cause troubles with their speech. As long as it's just for sleeping, I'm not stressing.