I had left him for the very first time to go to an urgent appointment with the osteopath after my difficult birth left me unable to walk after dislodging my hip. My husband had been left in charge and being without boobs he had resorted to a dummy to stop the screaming which my absence had prompted. It was his choice that day but it had been something we had discussed so I knew we would end up using dummies. But it looked so huge and so foreign on my sweet baby's face.
But how he loved it. And continued to love it.
I watched all my friends introduce dummies and swiftly and easily removed them while I carried around 7 at a time for fear of losing one and not having that fantastic calming device when I needed it most.
When we knew we were moving house we started talking to Monkey about what we would be taking with us and one day I just suddenly said 'but the dummies aren't allowed to come.' He understood that and from then on we would walk around the house pointing to what was coming and talking about how the dummies were not coming. (He also kept insisting that Daddy also should not come, but I just glossed over that one.)
When the day of our move came we said goodbye to the dummies in the morning and then Monkey headed off for a day out with his grandparents while Daddy and I did all the hard work. As he has a playroom at the new house, and is train crazy, we had brought him one of those giant play tables and covered it in all his toys. (An absolute E-Bay bargain at just £21!)
He absolutely loved it and I told him that it was a present from the dummies - so if they ever had to come back the table would go. It worked a dream and we really haven't had any problems. He asks for the dummies most nights but I just remind him they are gone and he accepts that.
It has made his sleeping go to pot with horrendous putdowns, night waking and very early starts. I've been tempted on one or two occasions to find the couple of dummies I know accidently made it to the new house and just stick it in his gob. I know it would work a treat and get him back to sleep instantly but I haven't and I won't.
Personally I never wanted to have a toddler with a dummy and I'm proud that I now don't.
ahh the dummy dillema, I remember it well. My first child would not have one at all, she would spit it out of her pram with gusto. My second child did not need one either at first as she was breast fed and Mummy became the dummy! Unfortunately when it came time to ween her off the breast totally(when her very sharp first teeth had started to come through) I made the stupid mistake of giving her a dummy at night. She was 3.1/2 before she finally decided to give up her precious 'nummy'. She only ever used it at night but she was far too old in my opinion to be needing one. Her Sister had a Rabbit, she wanted a guinea pig, there was a trade off and the 'nummy' went in the bin.
ReplyDeleteThey're still great for calming a super upset toddler, even at 2 and a half, but I always make it clear "you don't need that, you're not a baby! You're a big girl!", and she tends to agree. She'd much rather be a big girl than a baby!
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