Getting rid of a dummy and bottle from 24 month old

[WiseCoralGoose]

My son has just turned 2 and is very reliant on his dummy / paci for sleep. He also still has a bottle of milk in the morning and before bed (water out of a straw cup in the day). We know prolonged dummy / bottle use can cause teeth / speech problems so really want to get rid of both now he is two but think it would likely be best to do one first then the other. He is a very good sleeper so we are nervous about getting rid of the dummy, especially as he is used to having a few in his cot - usually in his mouth and one in his hand to fall asleep.

we have read up and know a lot of people use the dummy fairy but we are not sure he is old enough to understand that concept yet. We do have a no more dummies book but again not sure it will resonate. So we were thinking it may be best to just go cold turkey but already feeling the guilt!

he already takes two teddies to bed and one of the dummies is on a small comforter so we were thinking it give him the teddies and conforter without the dummy as a comfort but worried that won’t be enough.

any tips or advice welcome! And also for getting rid of the milk bottles - we have tried regular sippy cups but he will not drink out of them! Not sure about putting milk in a straw cup due to the cleaning not being so easy!

thank you

I saw a video of a dad with his little boy. They dug a hole in the garden and 'planted' his dummies. A little later, they went back into the garden and lollipops had 'grown' where they'd planted the dummies.....

We tried everything. And I mean everything!

Bribery, talking about the other children, nothing worked.

In the end we chatted with the dentist. She didn’t care about the milk bottles. She said the thing that’s the worst is actually fruit juice and raisins. If the only way he drinks milk is in a bottle then for now that’s better than not drinking milk as calcium is essential for healthy teeth.

For the dummy I ended up having to get up pictures of head braces. And said you will hate me now for taking this dummy but you will hate me even more when you’re older if you have to wear a head brace.

Bless him. He spoke about head braces for a few weeks but willing hands a dummy over if he’s asked and says ‘no head brace’. 😬 So that fixed the dummy problem.

Could you start by dropping the first bottle and offering a cup of milk instead?

If you’re nervous about his sleep, then the no cry sleep solution for toddlers and preschoolers should help you set up some other sleep associations but ultimately you might jist have to sacrifice a couple of nights of sleep to get him to break his habit.