[Allymeg69]

DS is 27 months, and has been a devoted dummy sucker since he was tiny, looking back I sometimes wished that DH had not gone to the hospital chemist on day 3 and bought the first darned one, but it did soothe him and probably gave me plenty of good nights' sleep that I might not otherwise have had.

We've been wanting to get rid of dummy for a while now, and have taken small steps, first it stopped going to day-care and that was no problem, and then we started making sure it was handed over first thing in the morning and we tried not to allow him to have it again until bed time, although the little rat has learned lately how to climb up onto the kitchen bench and get it from the usual holding place in the afternoon or on weekends.

We had been working up to the idea of giving dummy to Santa in exchange for presents, and he seemed to be taking that idea on board, but on the weekend, he had a severe bout of dribbling, we think there might have been some molar teething going on, and he relied on dummy so much over the weekend that he ended up with an ulcer just under his bottom lip. So on Monday, we told him that he couldn't use dummy while he had a sore lip because it was making things worse, we took it away and have been applying mouth gel to dry up the sore (which is working well).

So Monday night he went to bed without dummy .. had his tiny bit of milk and after a couple of calls for dummy, went to sleep - yay! 1.00am and there is great crying and distress as he wakes to find no dummy. I spend nearly an hour patting and soothing until he goes to sleep again. Tuesday morning, one request for dummy when he got out of bed (he just loves to hold it while he drinks his milk, and have a suck here and there, it's an addiction!), I ignored him and just told him he had milky to drink.

One brief request in the car on the way home from daycare yesterday and a bit of a cry when I said he couldn't have dummy because his mouth was still sore. Off to bed last night, no dummy, brief request deflected, brief whinge session heard on the monitor about 3am to which I didn't respond, and NO MENTION of dummy this morning!!

I am finding it hard to believe that we might just be about to get rid of it forever! And Santa might not have to be the bad guy after all

[imamumto3]

yay!

dd lost hers a couple of weeks ago and just went straight to bed that night without it and has not asked for it. makes me wonder why we left it so long

[Paddlepop]

Congratulations! We got our dummy addict to give up her dummies about 1.5 months ago. She was 2yrs9mths old. We got rid of hers on the same night we changed her cot into a toddler bed. We told her that there were no dummies allowed in the big girl bed and that was the rules and Mummy and Daddy couldn't do anything about it. She looked unsure so we offered her the option of changing her bed back to a cot so she could have her dummies. She didn't want that at all! So the dummies went, and the dummy fairy left her a present the next morning.

She still asked for them for about a month but seems to have realised now that they really are gone. She has slept fine without them.

It's nice to no longer have to constantly hunt and retrieve lost dummies from in or under her bed.

[Lainskii]

Congratulations! We got our dummy addict to give up her dummies about 1.5 months ago. She was 2yrs9mths old. We got rid of hers on the same night we changed her cot into a toddler bed. We told her that there were no dummies allowed in the big girl bed and that was the rules and Mummy and Daddy couldn't do anything about it. She looked unsure so we offered her the option of changing her bed back to a cot so she could have her dummies. She didn't want that at all! So the dummies went, and the dummy fairy left her a present the next morning.

She still asked for them for about a month but seems to have realised now that they really are gone. She has slept fine without them.

It's nice to no longer have to constantly hunt and retrieve lost dummies from in or under her bed.

This sounds like a good idea we might try. We've been trying to negotiate the giving it to Santa for more toys which she initially agreed to until she realised that he was going to take them away for good.

[Allymeg69]

I must say I was starting to worry that I would make DS hate Santa for life, so I am glad we have had another reason for dummy to go. Night 3 tonight and we had a bit of a tantrum on going to bed, a few extra cuddles and some patting and he is fast asleep, dummy free again