My youngest, Alyssa - 27months, has had a dummy from at least 6 months of age; I think. Anyway, I despised the idea of a dummy. My eldest, Luke 4 1/2 years of age, never needed one or we never gave him one at least. So, I have constantly been pondering on the thought of the most suitable time to take the dummy from Aly. My MCHN didn't seem to care so much, as Aly only had the dummy when she went to bed. She said it was really a personal thing, like a blankie. And she said she didn't care if she still had it when she was 15 years old as she would spit out the dummy once she was settled.
Well, that idea certainly didn't strike a chord with me. I have only bought 5 dummies over the time....a two pack to begin with, she broke both - another two pack, she lost one, so I bought another single as a spare.
On Saturday 21st October, she broke her main dummy. She hasn't used the 'spare' for a while now, so I think she forgot it existed. I decided to use this as our step 1 to get her off the dummy.
Saturday night I put her to bed, and as usual, she wants to hold her dummy. I explained to her that it was broken. She screamed the house down "dummy!" Hubby had a marvellous idea. We comletely removed the teat from the outside part of the dummy and gave her the hard plastic part to hang on to. "See, dummy is broken" She looked at it, a little befuzzled. "dummy broken?" she asked. "Yes, dummy broken." "Daddy fix it?" she asked. "No, daddy can't fix it."
So she lay down looking at her half-dummy. Then held it up and said "Don't want it" So we sang her normal song and after 2 1/2 restless hours, she finally went to sleep. She slept all night.
She woke at 6am - oh too early- in the most foul mood. It has been that way ever since. Takes hours to go to sleep and wakes up in a foul mood at 5 or 6 am. And, on top of that...she no longer has her afternoon sleep. She has quiet time...which I guess is just as important. Around her normal nap time, she does approach me reminding me "dummy broken". I think she is doing so well. The adjustment is still hard for her(and us) but I think it could have been so much worse.
We still have the spare, with contimplations on throwing it out, but I just think "what if?" Certainly, I know and am definite on not turning back now....just evil comfort for me I guess.
We have since purchased a little gift, that she chose, to reward her for her sacrifice.
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