My youngest, Rudy turned 3 last week and as I had done for my eldest Bradley (now 4) I prepared him for months prior to his 3rd birthday that his dummies would be posted to the ‘poor children’ (c/o my parents house!) the following day after his birthday – a final birthday treat of having a dummy! Of course I had all the questions; “why do they all have to go to the poor children?” so I just explained that the poor children’s mummy and daddy don’t work and have no money to buy the children dummies, and if you keep having dummies your teeth will stick out like a rabbit!
For both children, I tried not to let them have their dummies in the daytime by age 2. It was usually as a last resort by me, if they were playing up, but by age 2 I didn’t give (as hard as it was sometimes!). My theory always was if they only had a dummy at night it might be easier to make the transition to nothing!
Rudy was actually not too bad on the first night. He’d had a lovely party and we’d been reminding him throught the day that it was his last night with the dummy. The next night came and he kept asking for it, he did get a little upset (no where near as bad as Bradley had who cried himself to sleep the first night!) but I stuck to my guns, I had to treat them equally. His little gorgeous face though “but I ‘need’ it mummy” and how easy would it have been for me! We hadn’t posted them yet as it had been torrentially raining all day! I could have just nipped downstairs and opened the envelope! But I didn’t thankfully. After several more stories than usual, he was happy to settle down. Rudy did come into our room at 2am asking for his dummy, he did accept he wasn’t getting it, so settled into our bed and started fidgeting, so I went into Bradley’s room and slept in the bottom bunk.
The next night, again, an extra two hours to get to sleep, one attempt at asking me for his dummy, but admitted defeat straight away. A solid sleep through. And the same again last night, only three hours extra to get him to sleep – arrrgh, not good! I think the dummy was definately a coaxer to get into bed and get to sleep, now it’s faffing about with toys in his room, and asking me for extra stories which he never used to do. Tonight, he’s asleep for 9.30pm! So we’ve gone from originally 7pm-7.30pm to 9.30pm/10pm, what is going on!?
Apart from having lost my evenings, Rudy seems to be sleeping through better than he has been. Usually when he comes through to our room in the night, he’d be asking us to find his dummy. Perhaps now, he has woken up, but knows there’s no dummy so just goes back to sleep. Or is he just worn out because he is going to sleep much later? Who knows, probably the latter, but whatever it is, I just hope after a week of playschool and work routine, he’ll tire himself out and start going to sleep at a reasonable hour.
So, when is the right time to remove the ‘beloved dummy’ from your child? For me, age 3. All children are different so whatever’s best for you. One of my friends let her little boy have it until he was 4, just at night and like me did the birthday thing. Another took it away at Easter just before a 3rd birthday as the easter bunny took it and swapped it for a toy. Another friend did it at Christmas (although can’t remember age) but the reason being there were lots of toys to side track the transition! Another friend, around the age 3 mark, kept cutting the end of the dummy a little bit (saying it was broken) until there was just a stump and then the little boy threw it away himself.
I think the key is preparing your child and youself for ‘dummy loss’. Picking land mark times to do it, like birthdays, easter or christmas, or even the start of nursery if you dare do it at age 2! We told both our son’s for months before just to get the idea in their head, that their dummy friend wouldn’t always be there.
Whatever you do, good luck, hopefully you may have picked up some ideas if you’re stuggling!
