Tips & experiences for stopping dummy at 18 months?

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Actually he is now 19 months! I've just told him the dummy has gone now. He's in bed and hasn't asked for it yet. My worry is in the middle of the night when he wakes up asking for it.

It depends how he is. If he asks but settles after a little while carry on. If he's inconsolable I would give it back. My eldest stopped using his at 4, it hasn't hindered him in any way and he's a well spoken eloquent chap with lovely straight teeth. He gave it up when he was ready. I also bribed him with a large bit of plastic crap, we'd tried in the past and he couldn't cope, in the end he woke once, I reminded him of the impending trip to the toy shop and he went back to sleep and didn't cry over it again.

Mine stopped at 4 too. Just couldn’t face the angst of doing it earlier. But as his 4th birthday approached we told him it was going away when he turned 4 and the night of his bday he just stopped using it and never did again. No tears, no stress and it had no adverse effects on teeth, sleep, etc

I was utterly shocked at how easy getting rid of the dummy was when ds was 2 and 3 months is. He was a fiend and would sleep with one in his mouth and one in each hand.

We spoke to him about the dummy fairy coming to visit a few days before then had a ceremonial putting a dummy in a box (I'd wrapped in foil to make it sparkly and special) and told him the dummy fairy would take it and leave a gift for him (duplo aeroplane he had cjosen).

And... that was it, he asked for it a few times and we reminded him the dummy fairy had it and he's never looked back. Totally not expected.

I took my sons dummy away just after he turned 2. It was rough for a couple of weeks but he soon got used to not having it.

I had thought that he may struggle to get to sleep, but in the end the most difficult part for us was waking up in the morning and after naps. He would be absolutely hysterical. You may have to find a different way to comfort or distract him for a little bit.

It was well worth our trouble though!

He is very verbal and his pronunciation is good. He does however already have white sticky out teeth which is fine but I don't want to be the reason they are even more. I'll see how he is tonight to see what our action plan will be. I doubt he'd understand the present and fairy thing Altho I do like the idea.

I didn’t have the nerve to just take ds’s dummies away all in one go, so I started by limiting them to bedtime. After a week of this, I started slipping into his room at night and taking his dummy out of his mouth. He’d grumble a little bit but then fall back to sleep. Once he knew he could settle without it, it was so much easier to get rid of the dummies for good.

With dd, it happened by accident when she was nearly two. I was looking everywhere for the dummy she’d lost. After a while I thought ‘Why am I doing this?’. I had been a slave to that thing for ages and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to ‘lose it’ for good, so I did! Whenever dd asked for it, I would just say I couldn’t find it but that she could look if she wanted to. She quickly got bored of that though.

Okay so after all the worry and apprehension, I just told him the dummy is gone now and on the bin. He's slept fine and hasn't asked for it.