How to wean off the dummy at 28 months

[hm4912]

Hi, my little girl has always had a dummy and she is quite dependant on it. I try and take it off her when we are out and about but as soon as she gets a bit bored or tired she immediately wants it back. She also likes having 1 in her mouth and 1 in her hand. She goes to nursery where they don’t allow them (other than nap times) and we’ve got to a stage where we arrive at nursery and she’ll happily hand over the dummy and put it in her bag for the whole day (bar naptime) but as soon as we pick her up, she goes straight to her bag and asked for the dummy. I know that we need to be strict on her and not give in when she asks for it, which will cause a few tears but can anyone advise a gentler way to wean them off? Or is it better to wait until she is older where she can understand a little more?

Watching with interest! You could have described my DGS who is exactly the same age and DD is trying to wean him off too. He’s currently gently snoring beside me with one in his mouth and one in each hand! I wish I could remember how I got DD and DS to give them up!

We left it until she was older and even then didn’t do cold turkey, just very gradual.

I’d start with daytime only as you can find other distractions like a lump of play dough or a sensory toy.

If she hands it over at nursery then I’d say she does understand. You need to explain that dummies are only for sleeping.

At some point you probably will need to go cold turkey to remove it from the sleep time too.

28 months, you mean 2yr old 🙄. She's old enough to understand 'big girls don't have dummies', it might be hard for a few days but just persist with it. You are the adult here. The worst thing you can do is give in once you've made the decision to remove the dummy because that's confusing the message.
There are some books you can read to help her understand, dummies are for babies.

If the dummies get burst or broken don't replace them.

My dd did this. Happily went without a dummy at nursery including for nap times but begged for it at home In the end we went cold turkey. Was pretty horrible for about 2 days and then she was fine.

Agree with PPs - go cold turkey, no weaning her off it (that's confusing for a young child). She's young enough that she'll quickly forget. You'll have a hard few days but by this time next week the dummy will be a distant memory.

We managed to have it just for sleeping at that age, with a bit of protest. Just stopped giving it at other times.
Still had it for sleep until 3.5 when we did dummy fairy and he understood it all.

Cut a small hole in the dummies and don’t discourage use. Remove the satisfaction they’ll bring and she’ll be less interested.

My son was like this and in his mouth all time. His baby teeth came in round the dummy, there was a gap when he put his teeth together.

One day I was talking to him about the dummy when he was 2 yrs old, I said it's a dirty thing and why don't he pick them up and put them in the bin. He had quite a few spare ones. Luckily he did just that , and that was the end of it. I guess that was just maybe luck though .

We gave it to the dummy fairy at 2.5 who swapped it for a toy. It wasn’t nearly as hard as we thought it would be to be honest, he was more excited about the present. There was a bit of moaning for a couple of nights then done.

lol thanks for your reply but I don’t appreciate the use of emoji. I never refer to my daughter as a 28 month old but thought I would here as there’s big difffence between a 24 month old and a 35 month old!

I'd let her have it for sleeping til she's older tbh as long as the dentist is happy with her teeth. But I definitely wouldn't allow it outside of sleep and she's old enough to understand that, and also old enough to distract with engaging in other things. Tell her she's too big to have a dummy in the daytime, it would make her teeth poorly, so dummies are only for sleep now.