weaning 3 year old off dummy!

[milkyjo]

I'm after some well meaning advice, so please don't judge or ask why Ds still has a dummy! The plan is that Santa is coming for a special trip before Christmas to take his dummy and maybe leave him a little pre Christmas gift, he is giving the dummy to a baby who will need it more than him. Has anybody successfully done the cold turkey routine with a 3 year old? How many sleepless nights should we expect and what strategies do you employ to deal with the withdrawal symptoms!? Thanks in advance.

We did cold turkey at 2 1/2. DC had a new cousin, we spent a lot of time bundling up baby clothes etc for the new baby and included in that parcel the dummy as that was a "baby" thing. The first night he reckoned he couldn't go to sleep without it, but we talked about how it had gone to the baby who needed it more than he did; by the second night he'd forgotten. Literally.
Don't think he got a present (except a cousin).

Hi, no judging here, we are in the same boat. Started last week. He has been told that he gets some special Fireman Sam chocolate every night he manages without a dummy, and that has worked well for the last 3 nights. He struggles to get to sleep, so 1 night I lay in bed next to him until he was asleep, but once he gets to sleep he is fine all night.

Our biggest problem is the morning, when he wakes at about 5 and doesn't want to go back to sleep. Then the temptation to give him his dummies back is very very strong!! Our compromise is allowing him to take a cup of diluted apple juice into bed with him instead, for when he really wants something.

But I really want him off them by Christmas. He only has them to sleep, they aren't allowed out of his bed, so no one else knows he still has them. I would be too embarrassed to let the family see when we go to stay at Christmas. So he has 9 days to get used to it!

I'm waiting for him to forget they exist though, that would be nice.

Hi Catree, in my experience the

We did cold turkey on Christmas Eve when Father Christmas took the dummies for the baby reindeer.
We tried unsuccessfully on previous occasions but somehow the baby reindeer story worked. We left the dummies with a letter for Father Christmas saying that dd was a big girl now so the baby reindeer could have her dummies. Father Christmas left a letter in return with a special gift.
Good luck!

Grr phone & fat fingers! The only way to make him forget the dummy is to literally throw them all in the bin - out of sight, out of mind. (Tbh I had one hidden in a cup on a very high shelf just in case for about 6 months). Whenever we tried gentle weaning/star charts etc things would be fine until you reached a "difficult" day (eg feeling tired, under the weather, a bit sad etc) - when the automatic solution would be to reach for the dummy again. Good luck with it all!

We did this 2 weeks ago.

She decided to leave them outside in her shoes for St Nicholas to take to other babies. We were encouraging her to leave out-grown toys but she was insistent that she didn't need her dummies any more and she wanted to leave them too. When she woke up her dummies were gone and her shoes were full of treats instead.

It was fine! The first night she really cried at bedtime when she realised what she'd done, but only for about 5 mins and then went to sleep.
Every night she still asks for her dummy, sometimes accompanied with a few tears but she always accepts the explanation that St Nick took them.

I was worried what would happen if she got woken up by dd2 in the night but actually she doesn't even notice the lack of dummy and just goes back to sleep.

The challenge has been naps. Yesterday she had her first proper nap in two weeks, without her dummy, and I almost sang an hallelujah chorus :)

This might be a daft question, but why can't they keep their dummies if they are only used a nap/night time?

I have three year old twins who have dummies at nap and night time. It has never occurred to me that it is wrong for them to have them, so I've never tried to take them. I sucked my thumb as a child (never had a dummy), my thumb is a bit misshapen and I still find myself sucking my thumb when I'm knackered! I thought a dummy would be preferable to thumb sucking, so don't want them to switch the dummy for the thumb?

I'm really interested to know why it is worth the hassle of removing the dummy at this age?

Happy I have just read a Montessori article on the case for and against. If the child is a heavy user then it can impact on speech development. DS only has his dummy at night now as he doesn't nap at home, we never take it anywhere, his speech is advanced for 3. I don't want to convince myself it's fine to still have a dummy but in his case it probably is fine. I just would like him to stop using it, his mouth is too big for it. I don't think he really needs it as it sometimes drops down under the bed during the night but he sleeps until 7:30am. He has a comforter and he'll nap just fine in the car without comforter or dummy, and before his baby sister came along he would sleep in the pushchair without a dummy.