Any ideas on how to wean a 4 year old with autism off his dummy

[shouting]

He will be 5 in January, and the dentist has warned that we need to get it off him before his baby teeth start to come out.

He has it at night, or in the day if he is really upset - it's excellent for helping him calm down after a meltdown. He is very attached to it.

I just took ds' away. The August before he started school in the September, he would of been nearly 5 at this point. he'd not had it in the day since 2, but had it for bed.

I didn't explain anything he wouldn't of understood, I just literally didn't give him it for bed and threw them all in the bin.

He wasn't that attached though to be fair he fell asleep with it then it used to fall out and he wouldn't sleep with it, it was just for falling asleep with iyswim.

My DS used to suck his fingers. We didn't know at the time that he had ASD. We had a hard time from school, dentist etc about it. I wish now that we had understood that the sucking was his way of coping and I wish we had just accepted it until he was old enough to be reasoned with about it. My son has pretty good communication and understanding so this may not work for you. When my son was 5.5 I had a chat with him about needing to look after his teeth. I gave him three options, which were just stop, put plasters on his fingers or paint his fingers with the anti nail biting paint. He really didn't want the paint so we tried plasters, I explained if it didn't work we would have to do paint. It did work, it took a while but the plasters helped him remember not to do it.

For your son, you could think about waiting til he is a bit older and then giving him choices about how he stops? The big challenge will be helping him get to sleep without it, you could try really wearing him out with lots of activity and then trying.

Sorry just realised this thread is over a year old!