Not the dummy...
By jaydee_r34
@jaydee_r34 (147)
Canada
June 11, 2009 10:08am CST
My daughter who is 18 months uses a pacifier to get sooth herself to sleep and will not settle down without it. Without traumatizing the child by just making them disappear, how can I wean her off of this thing. She's too young to understand about the "dummy fairy" and I can't just take the thing away and have her cry for hours (there's other people in the house that will be disrupted) not to mention make herself throw up if her crying gets harder. Her dad will wind up giving in anf giving her the dummy and yelling at me because apparently "I like to hear her cry" (his words not mine). He cannot stand to hear her cry which makes my task that much harder.
Any thoughts or things that worked for you?
4 responses
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
12 Jun 09
I raised 4 kids and my theory regarding pacifiers and bottles was that, as long as the kid wasn't taking it to school in his/her backpack, I wasn't going to stress everyone out about it. The same goes for potty training. I had a potty chair and my kids played with it until they indicated in one way or another that they were ready to learn to use the potty. There was no specific age for anything.
Since your daughter only uses the pacifier to fall asleep I really wouldn't make an issue out of it because she will eventually give it up all by herself. I have a grandson who is just over 3 who still uses one sometimes to fall asleep. Not all of the time but there are nights when he wants it.
@doormouse (4599)
•
12 Jun 09
my youngest had a dummy til the age of 3,we tried everything to get rid of it,in the end we chopped the teats off so he couldn't use them,he only cried for a couple of days then forgot bout it.
@xoxcharityxox (567)
• United States
11 Jun 09
My daughter only had one until her first birthday. We completely threw them away so that we wouldn't give in. Surprisingly we didn't have a huge problem. It may be best to start taking them away at certain times and limit her time with them. Like during the day or after meals. I had a friend who actually cut the bottoms of them to make her kid dislike them and that also worked. Her son would try to suck on them and get irritated and just give up. After a week or so he didn't grab for them at all because it just wasn't working for him anymore. It's best to get her off them now because the older they get, the more attached to them they become.
