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Weaning your baby off the dummy

1 Sep 2006

Mother & Babies' Health Visitor, Jackie Welsh writes:
Soothers can prevent children from forming words correctly and may affect the position of the teeth. The success of weaning your little one off hers depends entirely on both you and your partner being determined not to give in. And while you may prefer the idea of weaning your child off her soother gradually, you'll just be prolonging the agony because you'll have to take it away eventually. The best thing to do is confiscate her dummies completely, and take it one step further by throwing them all away so you're not tempted to give in at any stage. It'll take a few nights for your child to accept that her dummy's gone, but if you give in, you'll have to start the whole process all over again. You need to accept that your child will get upset and want it back, but to deal with this you need to distract her and be reassuring. At bedtime, put her favourite cuddly toy in the cot so she has some comfort from that.

Alice Hunter, 38, a full-time mum, took Jackie's advice to wean her daughter Bronwyn, 14 months, off her dummy in just four days. Bronwyn had used a dummy since she was five months old because mum Alice found it soothed her when she was teething. Alice and her husband Steve decided to wean her off her dummy, as she was depending on it more and more.

Alice's thoughts:
"Bronwyn's now dummy-free but it was a difficult few days. You and your partner must be in total agreement about taking your child's soother away or you could end up making it worse by blaming each other when things get tough. It's a difficult thing to do, especially when your baby's distraught and can't be comforted, but it's only for a short period of time. Do it over a weekend so you can both take turns in distracting your baby. A few weeks on and I'm sure Bronwyn doesn't think about her dummy, so it was worth all the heartache and trauma."

Tags: Talk To Your Baby