speaking of giving up the dummy.....

[JackzMumma]

:hair:What do you do when your DS is 3 in July and doesn't speak english, just fluent gibberish, and sends his dummy whooshing past some poor blokes head, or piffs it into some poor ladies lunch, or throws it under the coffee table just so you can't get to it as easily, all because he's having a hissy fit! But he won't go to bed without it and will whinge and whinge til you find one just so he can sleep? Help me!!!

[the_queen]

I'd restrict it for only bedtimes. When he gets up in the morning, the dummy stays in his bed, or up on top of the fridge, or some place he can't get it. The first few days, fill his itinerary up so that he is so busy he doesn't think about a dummy. And when he speaks, repeat back to him what he is trying to say.
I would say it's OK to keep it just for sleep times for now, deal with day-weaning first and night-weaning will come later.

[JackzMumma]

Thanks for that I will give it a go. But how would I go about weening him off it for sleep times? He's sooooo attached it's hard.:confused:And he already has a blankie that he needs as well.

[the_queen]

I would not even worry about night times yet. The daytimes are the first step, and I'd worry about night times later, once you've got the daytimes sorted out.

To be honest, I believe in "Child Led Weaning" in breastfeeding, and comforters. I cannot see the harm in a child having a comforter to go to sleep. If it comforts him, to me that says that it is 'necessary', IYKWIM. The point is that when he doesn't need it anymore, he'll give it up by himself. He may well have it for another 2 or 3 years, but if it's only at bedtime (by which I mean, he doesn't get it until he is in bed and going to sleep) then I can't see the harm.

But if you do want to get rid of it altogether, I would wait until the daytimes are happily dummy-free. Then, a lot of people have success with the "Dummy Fairy", where you sit with him and write a letter to the dummy fairy about what present he wants in exchange for the dummies, then leave the dummy in a box/bag in a special fairy place, then the next morning the present that he asked for is in there.

Good luck! My daughter was a dummy addict too, and I know what it's like to worry that they'll be sucking on it when they graduate from uni :laughing:

[our little treasures]

I am currently getting rid of DS' dummy now. He has just gone to bed without it and had his earlier nap without it. I cut the end off and then dumped it within his toys so he could stumble across it. He came to me straight away with the first one and I told him the fairies came and took it. Then with the second one (he owns about 10) I did the same to another one but when it was nap time he could only find the broken one. We looked for about 10mns and then I just said "oh well looks like the fairies took them". He was pretty good and went to sleep. I cut them 1. Because there was NO WAY I was being the bad guy and I wanted someone else to blame, 2. I would have given it back to him because I love him too much.

My son was an addict and would beg you for it. We always found it in his mouth and he would talk with it in his mouth. A friend of ours has a 6 and 4 yr old son with a dummy and I knew that would be him!!:(