[Starposs]

When did everyone get rid of the dummy and how did you do it? I'm thinking at Christmas time I might hang them on the tree for Santa to take for the new babies? He will be 23 months then so should understand? Was also thinking of doing the same for his bottles? He only has one bottle at night now, but I've been thinking I may be able to cut it out completely and just give him his milk in a cup before bed? He main,y on,y has his dummy for bed or if he is upset, would have it all say I'd we let him though!

[laladidah]

Hi there,

For my dd we dealt with the milk first, then the dummy. At about 15 months old we started reading a story on the couch while she drank her milk out of a sippy cup, then brush teeth then bed. I did the bottles first, because I thought having a dummy at night might help the transition from the bottle.

After that was all going good we decided to do the dummy at 18 months. I was actually recommended to wait until about 24 months by my CHN, because by then she would be able to understand better, and understand "getting a reward". But I just went ahead because we were going through packs of dummies a week! It did take about 2 weeks for her to get back to normal, and we did have to sometimes sit in her room or pat her to help her get to sleep, but we just phased that out over time, and now at 2 it is so nice to not always be hunting for dummies under her bed!

As for how we did it, I just went cold turkey. She has a little teddy she sleeps with which helped, but just didnt give her the dummy. I just told her that "the little babies" need the dummies ... which was simple enough for her at that age. She did make a huge fuss the first night, but it got better, I just had to sit it out. With the milk she didnt fuss too much, but she was a bit younger. I just bought sippy tops for her avent bottles, so it wasnt such a huge change. First couple of days she didnt drink any, but she soon worked it out.