Should we give her back the dummy?

[PomPotty]

I am sooooo tired, we're on day 18 after my dd 2.11 voluntarily posted her dummy to the fairies.

I had vaguely mentioned this idea to her 2-3 times but not for several wks before she announced that she wanted to do it.

I spent that morning explaining what it meant.... Nap and bedtime with no dummy, but she put it in the envelope and post box herself.

She settles ok at first now but is often inconsolable in middle of night and has rejected her "favourite" soft toy she slept with. I think she's having bad dreams, poor soul.

Also she now will not sleep in her bed or on matress on floor or have her diver..... She's asleep on the floor now with a fleece blanket.

I feel so sad for her....shall I bring back the dummy so we can all get better sleep?

Diver=duvet

yes - give it to her

NO

It will only take a couple of nights and it will be a dim memory.

If she's having bad dreams a dummy wont stop that, it could just be co-incidental. We had months of bad nightmares and no sleep resettling - it's horrible (we didn't have a dummy to remove, so it definitely wasn't that!).

If I were you I'd receive a parcel from the fairies sharpish.

New and incredibly snugly toy and note of thanks for the dummy, saying how the sad baby it was given too is now very happy and how proud of her they are for helping the sad baby.

Give it back. I could have written this myself. DS chucked his in the bin at 2.5 and never asked again. DD we've tried at least 3 times now. To no avail, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We were looking at pre schools the other day and she said, no dummy for big girls at school mummy. So I'm waiting till her third birthday in April and we'll chuck it then when she starts school!

Bump. Evenly split opinion isn't much use...

I'd really want to try everything before giving it back. Otherwise it'll have been 18 days of hell for nothing.

DS was given this bear, it's the most utterly soft and snugly bear I've ever met.

Thank you all.... It's such a dilemma, she did get a baby doll which she really wanted from the "fairies" but it's not so snuggly.

She's woken for 3rd time tonight and this time has been awake for over 30mins, sigh....DH is adamant we won't give in

It's all quiet now, fingers crossed, otherwise am guessing we'll have 3 in our bed tonight, sigh

Thanks so much, will report back..,,

Hey PomPotty, the change will be unsettling but it will pass - I'm really surprised you've had such divided opinion because when I was going through this, the overwhelming view was keep going. It's the good old consistency word that needed here, you've made the change things have gone a bit crazy and there is a real tendency to try anything to fix it. If you and DH can agree on a strategy for the bedtime routine now on and dealing with night waking, it will really help, just likely to take some time.

Could be time to consider a reward chart in combination with a clear and consistent approach to the night waking.

i'm hoping to do this soon, can't bring myself to do it yet! when i will though it will be all or nothing. it feels unfair to do it in the first place if you are going to give in, as you said the past few days will have been for nothing. i take ds1's away once he's asleep and he wakes up looking for it so am leaving it for a bit.

Thanks mindy, I think you're right.

Well on Wed night as predicted we ended with 3 in bed, but last night was much better. she slept on pull out bed with her comfort toy and woke only 3 times and settling her was lots quicker... I hope we're through the worst now.

Thanks for the encouragement

Oh brilliant! Glad you stuck with it