I don't have any personal experience with giving up the dummies but laying here with my DD now and her gob-full of dummy I know we will in the future so I'll be trying what our friends did.
Our friends took their DD to a big toy shop and let her pick out a toy, within a reasonable price range. They had spoken to her about it so she knew what was coming. She had all her dummies in her little bag and 'paid' for her new toy with all her dummies. It worked a treat apparently although she did find one random one under a couch or something at home but after a quick suck agreed to throw it in the bin. So to be safe you have to ensure you have ALL of them to hand over
I really like that idea, we'll definitely be adding to our list of things to try
A friend recently had a dummy ceremony for her girls who are 4 and 2.5
They tied the, to balloons and setbthem free to fly to a baby who needed them..took lots of pics etc
They then had a picnic w party food to celebrate being big girls
I never used dummies so no personal experiences to help you
Just wanted to say that I love these suggestions, so gentle and child-oriented. DS is 12 months old and we have been thinking about how we'll get rid of his dummy when the time is right. Lots of great ideas here, the problem now will be deciding which to try!
I haven't read any of the other replies, but what would happen if her dummy got a hole in it....would she be put off?
DS had his 'num num'...two of them actually, one for his mouth, and one to rub on his face till he was just over 3! Which after he bit a hole in them, weren't as desirable anymore.....I intended on giving his to Father Christmas....but I didn't have to....one day, he was waiting for the rubbish man (he loves that guy!) and decided to get rid of them into the wheelie bin and send them away with the grass clippings (he loves the lawnmower man too!)
We were living in transit, about to go overseas, had just moved from overseas, so I hadn't put any pressure on him to get rid of them at all....I just thought he'd do it when he was ready, and he did. The holes in them though really helped.
When I was little, my mum just knicked a little hole into mine too....and that worked for me.
My approach for my eldest son who was also very attached to his Dummy's was to mail them. I decided against the leaving them out for Easter Bunner/Santa as I felt that was a bit intimidated for him. So we wrote a letter together and discussed how the new babies would need dummies and that he was a big boy now. We put the letter and his dummies in the envelope and then we mailed them. I'm lucky in that we live on a farm so we just put our mail in our letter box and the postie collects it so I just got DH to take it out before the mailman came. Maybe you could take her into the post office to mail it (I'm sure the staff would be obliging).
We actually bit the bullet and did it over Easter. I talked it up the whole week before hand saying that the dummy fairies were going to come on Good Friday night and leave a present in exchange for his dummies. He didn't have a day nap that day so going to bed in the evening was relatively easy as he was all tuckered out! Then on Saturday morning he woke up to find a new train track setup for him in the lounge room. He was soooo excited! On the Saturday we were busy busy with swimming lessons and then rushing off to MIL's 60th birthday lunch and we really talked it up about how exciting it was that he gave his dummies to the fairies and they gave him a train track set Being a busy day and no day sleep, he went to bed quite easily again that night. On Sunday morning, he was excited about doing the Easter egg hunt at home and the rellies houses.
It wasn't until that evening when he had developed a cold over the day that he started to ask for his dummy again. Being sick, I think he just wanted comfort so we just gave him lots of cuddles and reminded him that the fairies have his dummies now. He had a little cry and then went to bed. He's been dummy-free since so it has worked really well so far!
Ok, so this isn't about a dummy, this is about my thumb, but hey, thought it may help anyway
I was four and about to start school and my Mum told me that babies suck their thumbs and I'm a big girl now and big girls don't suck their thumbs and noone else at school would be sucking their thumbs either because they're not babies anymore. That was the last day I sucked my thumb.
Sometimes three is too early. Every child is different and if you are questioning it and DD is acting as if she really isn't ready, then I see no point in distressing her your yourself over it. When she is ready you will know
I know we will in the future so I'll be trying what our friends did.
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