Taking Num-nums away.

Wow that’s fantastic Mzrina!! You’re doing really well for such a difficult problem. Sounds like your on the road to success with it to me!

I had to have a giggle when I read about the vegemite and how your toddler dealt with the situation! He’s such a good boy!

That’s awesome progress. Though I would be surprised if your little genius realises when he is down to his last dummy and troopers through and becomes a vegemite addict as well!! Thanks for the progress update. Gives me hope that mine will eventually be free of his ‘plugs’. We nick named them plugs when he was a newborn and he’d cry – one of us would always say ‘can you plug him up’. Poor thing was never allowed to make a noise – we either plugged him or I stuck him on the boob!! He’s getting his own back now. He’s the loudest bloody baby I have ever heard!!

Hello lovely ladies..

So im back with an update on the num-nums situation. I have good and bad news. Okay lets start with the bad just to get it out of the way. Hes a stubborn little lad and putting up a pretty good fight, still asking for his dummy when theres nothing to keep him occupied. Iceblocks are still working, we have 1 a day when its abit warmer, as soon as I hand him one he quickly forgets about the dummy and doesnt want it till nap time. Which is a good 3 hours without it. The good news .. I did a little experiement the other night and coverd the entire teat with vegemite left it on the coffee table for him to find, he spat the dummy out quicker than anything Ive ever seen in my life LOL, to my surprise he picked it up told me it was yucky and put it in the bin. But hes no dummy guys he knows he has a couple more around. So Im going to experiment some more, put them all together and count with him how many for a couple of days, then one buy one as he finds each vegemite covered dummy hopefully well count them all into the rubbish bin 🙂 (also a good way to teach numbers) LOL 🙂

Have a lovely day beauties. Xo

at least you can ditch the dummy. my little man is nearly 4 and he sucks his thumb. i tried to get him to take a dummy as a baby but he wouldn’t have a bar of it. I’ve shown him pics of what can happen, tried the bitter nail stuff to stop biting, tried putting a bandaid on it, pretty much everything and he still does it when he’s tired.
for those of you with thumb suckers, i’ve done heaps of research and pretty much all the info i can find says don’t make a big deal out of it, they should grow out of it by about 6 and if not peer pressure at school (ie: being teased – great!) usually stops them.

As for anyone telling you what you should and shouldn’t do with the dummy, well i have my opinion which is i’d have taken it by 2.5years but it’s up to the individual. Maybe when you decide you really want it gone you can get him a special ‘big boy’ present, even if it’s a comfort blanket or teddy. Let’s face it, they’re still so little so who cares if they need a bit of extra comfort, let them have it. )

With my niece She was around 2 and a half and my sister in law said you have one dummy left once you lose it. Its gone forever and you cant get anymore.

So what happened my niece threw it in a shopping isle and gone forever

I agree. Mummy knows best. Your comment has made me feel alot better about my situation. Thanx 🙂

You will get so much advice from so many people about your child but the way i see it, he is your child and only you know what makes him happy. I let my eldest stay with a dummy till she was 2 and a half, friends telling me that it was wrong and so forth, my daughter who is now nearly eight has perfect teeth and no speech problems, she was happy with her dummy and she gave them to Santa one christmas. So many people focus on this. Funny though because most of the people that told me that i was doing wrong dont have perfect children, swearing and ruling the house at the age of 8 and they had no dummys.

One thing you do have to keep in mind is the fact that the longer you keep it the harder it will be to give it up. But like i did, i told them that they were getting to big for it and that Santa needed it for another baby and they happily gave it up.

No problem hun 😉 Goodluck.

That’s awesome to hear that Mzrina! Kids love those iceblocks – even in the middle of winter so it may just be the trick! (I forgot to mention that mini one’s could be simply a slightly naturally flavoured ice cube with a paddle pop stick frozen into it.) Not sure what you’ve used but if it’s working then it’s fabulous!! Keep us up to date with how it all unfolds & keep being persistant with those iceblocks! All us mums are right behind you : ) No tears is fantastic!

MML thankyou for your idea too for my thumbsucking six year old (nearly seven) re the video. I’ll be finding one tomorrow to show her after school – a little bit of homework lol!! Gee I hope it makes her stop. I’ll let you all know how it goes. (I’ve been attemping Stop & Gro on her thumbs but alas, to no avail! She sucks right through that stuff!!!)

Thanx everyone for all your ideas. Today I tried the iceblock trick. Hes had 2 so far. Hes had his “num-nums” in only 3 times today for about 10-20 mins each time 🙂 which is alot better than having it in all day and only removed to eat or drink. He even speaks through it but ive been encouraging him to take the dummy out and repeat what he said. I love love love the santa idea I think its super cute .. if slowly weening it away doesnt work i’ll definately try that and others. Thanx agen EXOH

My darling nephew turned 3 in March, and last christmas Santa took his dummy, and left him a dump truck in its place, he hasn’t asked for it once!

He also fell for the trick that his mum said on his birthday that 3 year olds aren’t allowed to wear nappies, and he hasn’t had a single accident 😉

It’s funny. The first time I heard the Santa trick I thought it was so cruel but then I have heard so many people use it successfully that I now plan on using it myself. My son will be 2 in Jan so the timing should be good for us – if he can understand things like that by then. I am actually a bit worried about his speech though. He is 16 months and hasn’t said any words yet so I have contacted a speech pathologist to see if this is ok and I have a feeling they might make my get rid of the dummy. Though he has been hitting all of his milestones at the later end of normal ie he didn’t crawl until 11 months or walk until nearly 16 months. He didn’t even attempt to do these things beforehand – he just waited until he could do it properly before even trying ie he started running a week after walking. So maybe talking will be the same??

Anyway back to your problem with the dummy, if Christmas is too long to wait to do the Santa trick you could always do the dummy or tooth fairy trick. Maybe spend a week or 2 pointing out little babies with dummies and start explaining that dummies are for babies and not big kids and if he wants to be a big boy he needs to give his dummy to the dummy fairy and that she will give him a present in return. Maybe leave it up to him – tell him to let you know when he would like his present from the dummy fairy so that you can help him leave the dummy out…and hopefully he wants a present more than a dummy! My friend who use the Santa trick said that his son was fine for a couple of days without the dummy until he got sick of his new toy then he was like ok I want my dummy back so they had to explain that it’s gone now a new baby has it. Another trick I heard was someone took their kid to the dentist and got the dentist to gush praise on how beautiful their teeth are so they feel really proud. The dentist then asks whether the kid has a dummy and when they say yes the dentist can looked shocked and explain that dummies are going to make the beautiful teeth turn yucky or fall out or whatever you think will work then get the dentist to tell them that as soon as you get home you need to throw them out. You just need to tee this up with dentist before you go there.

Anyway good luck and let us know what works as I’ll be traveling down this path in a few months!