Maggie, her dummies and Maybelle the fairy

If there’s one thing Maggie loves, its her dummies. It’s been a passionate love affair from the first night in the hospital when I was SO out of practice with a crying, unsettled, just born baby that a dummy was given to her when I was delirious and she finally settled and slept with it. Sweet dummy!

Daisy had a dummy when she was a baby and gave it to the Easter bunny not long after she turned 2. Harper never had one (despite my trying believe me) but it was likely to do with her high adenoids and tonsils that she had taken out just after she was two. But Mags, well she loved them. And maybe I did too because it meant that she was still the baby.

We knew that we had to get rid of them eventually but none of us wanted to deal with it, so there she was at 3 and a bit with a passion (ok, obsession) for dummies as strong as ever.

I watched some friends on Instagram who had older kids who had dummies who appeared to not hav them anymore and would send them messages of HOW?! And WHAT DID YOU DO? And the general line was that they eventually just got over it and moved on, or they went to the dentist and they listened to them…so I kind of waited thinking (and hoping) that she would magically want to give them up. YEAH RIGHT.

There’s been a lot of focus around here in the past few weeks with dentists. I had root canal. Harper lost a tooth and had a dentist appointment check up, Daisy got braces. There’s been LOTS of talk and we mentioned a number of times that Maggie would have to go for a check up and that the dentist would tell her that she needed to give up her dummies.

One random Thursday night about 3 weeks ago Maggie piped up saying that she would give the tooth fairy her dummies. ALL of us looked at each other a little unsure how it was all going to go down (we tried about 6 months ago and things DID NOT GO WELL. I wasn’t ready! But had to be. Daisy was a superstar about it all, telling her that we would leave a note for the tooth fairy telling her that the next night, we would leave them out and could she please have an Elsa dress up costume as a present.

The first night we left a note with our intentions out in the fairy garden. Daisy dealt with all correspondence in the matter at hand. My baby helping my baby, wait wasn’t SHE just a baby? And now my baby is not my baby? I was nervous and sad at all this big kid behaviour. And the fact I no longer have babies.

The next day this note arrived in the garden ready for the next night. Harper helped Maggie get things ready for Maybelle. A book nonetheless!

At bedtime we placed them all outside in a little box Maggie taking them out saying in her little voice “Thank you dummies, I am a big girl now and don’t need you anymore”. Again, I cried obviously and was SHITTING myself about what was about to go down.

She went down without any trouble as she was exhausted, but a few hours woke up screaming, and I mean SCREAMING. Everyone woke up, everyone was cranky and after over an hour of inconsolable crying (she wasn’t asking for there dummy because she literally couldn’t bring herself to say it) I gave in and gave her one. She literally passed out in my arms and I didn’t hear from her again.

The next morning she handed it over to me when I got her up out of bed and I explained to her that Maybelle said she could have ONE for night but she couldn’t have it at all during the day. She nodded, and got it. And was thrilled there was an Elsa costume waiting for her outside.

That weekend there was lots of “I miss my dummies MUM” during the day and a request to bed at 6pm where she got that dummy and fell asleep in 2 minutes. And then after a week, less to no requests for the dummy during the day, but early to bed and straight asleep in like 2 minutes flat. It’s been a Christmas miracle.

There’s still the one solo dummy, but right now the fact that she has none at all during the day, and doesn’t request it or sneak it in is HUGE. It’s been 3 weeks now and bed time has been a game changer (no fuss and early) she seems to have dropped that day time sleep pretty much all the time so bed time has been earlier than normal as well. But more than that she has been a different kid. THIS has surprised me. Hearing that little voice again without the muffle of a dummy, seeing her smile and without it in, SO good. She’s been less whingy too (I have NO idea why) and just more grown up. She’s proud of herself. We all are.

Last week she had her first appointment at the dentist and he said that he could see she had a dummy but praised her for her efforts. I felt proud/smug/relieved. Her smile says it all really.

We’re almost there (most nights that dummy is in for a little whole before falling out when she sleeps). She hands it over and hasn’t snuck it in once. Soon enough we will see if Maybelle takes the last one for another prize, and we might just get there. It’s been so wonderful to have the help of Daisy onboard with it all too, Maggie ADORES her and looks up to her so much so whatever she says, she pretty much does.

Thank goodness for Maybelle, and Daisy.

How did you give up the dummies at your place?
Got any tips to share with us all? Clearly I am not quite the master, but we are getting there!
Perhaps both Mum AND babe take comfort from these things…

Comments

  1. No dummies in our house but my 3 year old (who is turning 4 on Saturday) sucks her two middle fingers instead. Has done since day one. The dentist said dummies are better because at least you can take them away! She said she’s going to stop with her fingers in her mouth when she’s four, but I’m not sure how that’s going to go down. She just wandered into the room while I typed this with the fingers in. 🤦‍♀️

  2. Oh gosh. No dummies here – but three out of my four girls are thumbsuckers. The eldest being 15. FIFTEEN!!! It’s not like I can cut them off. It does my head in. 🙂 Well done Maggie, Maybelle and co. Great team effort!

  3. I wish I had dummy troubles! My nearly 13yr old STILL sucks her thumb! So much so that she has one man-sized thumb!!! and a skanky security blanket!! HELP!! She just does not give a shit and we have persuaded and bullied and cajoled and even hidden “snot-rag”. She doesn’t even care that we all call it snot-rag!! She has NO shame!!

  4. Neither of my two would take a dummy either… Man did I try too…. One however decided to suck her thumb and that was extremely hard to give up…. The school yard was good to get her out of the habit during the day but nights took until she was about 8 years old. Yes, one thumb is a different size to the other and yes she had to have braces to fix her teeth but all in all she got there in the end all by herself.

  5. Oh Beth! I think YOU need a costume reward too! Maybe a cat woman costume for your covert ways, or a Supergirl one for obvious reasons! LOL.

  6. My Little Mister (now 6 years old) was obsessed with his dummies too. Luckily for us, he started to bite through them seeing as he had all his teeth at Maggie’s age too! So we’d tell him that each broken dummy was not safe for him (probably isn’t) and that we’d have to throw them out. We never replaced them. I told him that when they all ran out, that was it. I started brainwashing him with a very irritating Sesame Street special “Bye Bye Binky” and while I wasn’t sure it was getting in, we persisted. Eventually he was down to only one dummy left. He was starting to only have it when sleeping and if we were out of the house in a strange environment and wanted comfort (the SHAMING WAS RIDICULOUS – had been going on since he was 18 months old – poor kid looked older than what he was). What happened next was the most hilarious and life saving fluke. He had a cold and a blocked nose. He got up in the morning and despite my annoyance at him keeping it in his mouth to do his morning wee on the toilet (because it just seemed gross), he was sucking/chewing on it. Anyway, he was weeing and then coughed…the dummy flew out of his mouth and into his wee in the toilet! Of course he did not want that one again and he knew it was his last one! He was so surprisingly easy going about it! He had a nap that day and hugged a new soft toy for comfort. He cried a little but settled. That night he was AMAZING. After that day he never asked again. After that he was SO chuffed with himself. Now I have a 7 month old who is not quite as into it yet (there’s still plenty of time for her to be obsessed I’m sure), but I’m hoping that if the time comes for me to ask her to give them up, I will have a similar miracle!

    • Praise be for the dummy, I would never have slept the few hours a night that I did without them. Two out of three loved them. We did the same, only allowed at night and then didn’t replace the deflated one. Just after three years old they were gone but I will be forever grateful for them. Good on Maggie and the whole family xx

    • Great story!

  7. Years ago when my peeps where little and I was driving home from town I was discussing with the 2 year old the dummy would have to go and she said “Yes” wound down the window and chucked it out! I kept driving, we live 100km from town and that was her only dummy. I think it helped that she did the chucking.

  8. I’m tearing up reading this. This is what parenting is – trying to raise good humans & lady you’ve done a GREAT job🙌🏼

  9. 2 our of 3 has dummies in our family. First born loved them. We went with they are only for sleeping and not for all the time. That went ok. Then one of the kids at daycare gave up their dummies for their birthday and so daycare said all kids in the room would have a sleep without their dummies to support their friend (this is 2-3 year olds). Both mine slept with no dummies at daycare. Decided we would try this at home. Few tears and requests but not bad. Both kids were rewarded with a toy of their choice for giving them up. My first born now sucks her thumb. Pretty much dummy to thumb and she is now 5. I used to suck my thumb and was a teenager before I stopped. It was so hard but such a comforting thing for me. I do recall someone saying you don’t see primary school kids with dummies in their mouths and yes that is true but the damage is already done to their teeth and mouth. Wish you all the best with Maggie. It seems you are on the right path now though and it’s a step in the right direction.

  10. Ok, so we decided that 3 was old enough to take my son’s dummy away. We decided to take it away at Xmas & give it to Santa for the ‘baby reindeer’. What we didn’t realise, was that taking the dummy away when a new baby had just arrived, probably wasn’t our best decision. We were at my Mum’s (for moral support) & it was 2 nights of pure hell. My Mum had to hide the dummies from me so I wouldn’t give in & return them. The funniest part was when we came home, my son was wandering around the house as though he was looking for something. He informed us he was looking for the dummies we hadn’t given to Santa (I had left 2 on the bench before we left) – he remembered!! After a few days of whinging & requests to go to the shops to buy more… it was forgotten about. I now have an 8 month old that is obsessed, but I’m ok with that as he no longer uses my nipple as one 😉 Hang in there, how many 16 year olds do you know that still have one??

  11. We had Santa take my three year old’s dummy (Nuk). Christmas Day we were at my Mum’s and child says to granny would she call Santa and have him come and take the presents and bring her Nuk back!! Of course granny just happened to have one in the fridge and it was another year!!

  12. My daughter could not go to sleep without FOUR dummies! One in her mouth, one in each hand and a spare in case one fell down behind the cot. I spent so many nights crawling under that damn cot with a torch to find the dropped 4th dummy 😖. One of her lovely carers at crèche eventually suggested we leave all the dummies outside in the oak tree for the mummy possum to give to her babies who were crying. That worked a treat and she quite willingly gave them ALL away! I can’t remember how old she was but now she’s 28 and we still laugh about it. Loved the fairy letter reminding me of the letter she left out for the tooth fairy asking LOTS of questions. I had to spend an hour with a pink glitter pen that night, writing the lengthy reply in teeny tiny fairy handwriting 😂

  13. just gorgeous!
    bless that fairy!
    love mx

  14. My 3 year old Ruby is just about to get a visit from the dummy fairy tonight, presents have been bought (and hidden away) and letters written with the help of her big brothers! I feel very nervous about the whole thing as she is dummy obsessed like Maggie but I just have to bite the bullet, the whole last baby thing makes things so much more emotional (why do they have to grow up!) Thank the lord for dummies though, so many silent car trips and peaceful nights with all three of my kids because of them. Good luck with Maggie!

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