I have tried letting her have it just until she is nearly asleep and then removing it (the theory being that how they fall asleep is how they expect to remain all night), but she has wised up to this and now curls up to sleep with her hand protectively over her dummy! She also does this if she wakes in the night and I put it back to calm her, making it dificult to remove it. I have also found that this has a tendancy to wake her up so that it is harder for her to go back to sleep.
She doesn't use it during the day other than naptimes.
I'm not a fan of crying it out, does anyone have any suggestions? She is still far to young to reason with, but I would like to break this habit sooner rather than later.
2007-03-01 22:36:44 · 17 answers · asked by Anonymous in Pregnancy & Parenting ➔ Newborn & Baby
Aww, it's not doing her any harm and at 8 months I think she might be too young, let her have it, it's obviously a comfort to her. My eldest daughter now 13 gradually came off her dummy after the age af 3, my second daughter, now 10, dropped hers down the loo by accident when she was 3 and I just said to her 'oops, it's gone now' and she happily never had 1 again, but she was really placid. Now, my son who is 4 still has his dummy at night time and I will let him have it until he feels no longer attached to it, it is a source of comfort to him, no one outside the home knows he still has it and it doesn't bother me. My 2 daughters have grown up with no ill effects for having their dummies but I can still remember my mam taking my dummy away from me, must have only been 2 1/2 and I was absolutely devastated and also after she took my dummy away, I developed a thing where I pulled my lower eyelids down if I was tired, even now if I get extremely tired my eyes get irritated and I have an urge to pull my eyes (weird, I know!)
All I can say is I don't think it does them any harm to keep them, all I can do is offer my experience of what my kids were like, but that is for you to judge how your daughter will cope without it. Good luck whatever you decide!
2007-03-01 22:55:07 · answer #1 · answered by Jane H 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Please listen to "JaneH" and for goddness sake let her have her pacifier if it is a comfort to her! Children are forced to grow up so fast in our society and if an innocent thing like a pacifier gives her comfort it is certainly not going to hurt her in any way. These precious days of her babyhood will soon be only a memory. Why cause her unnecessary stress and trauma by taking away something that she evidently is using to soothe herself. You may very well cause more problems in the long run by upsetting her. She is not asking you to get up and take care of her in the middle of the night, all she wants is her pacifier. Where is the harm in that? If she is as you say putting her hand up to protect her pacifier then it must be very important to her. Why put yourself in a power struggle with a little 8 month old baby?
Has someone given you some poor advice about pacifiers? Perhaps telling you that they are bad for the developing teeth? Some of my babies used them ( I had 5) and I never tried to make them give them up, all of them have beautiful teeth. If this is your first baby maybe you just need to trust yourself a bit more and not listen to what others are telling you.
One other thing, are you letting her nurse as long as she wants before you put her to sleep? Maybe she is not getting enough comfort thru sucking and so is trying to make up for it with the pacifier. Have your tried nursing her just before you put her to bed for the night? Even if there is not much milk she will find it a comfort and will "nurse herself to sleep".
Wait until she is at least a year old before you start taking away things that she evidently needs and wants. At lest by that time she might have a chance to understand a bit. Eight months old is just too young. Let her be a baby! You are probably doing more harm than good.
Good luck and I hope that you decide to let her keep her "dummy" a bit longer.
Blessings
Lady Trinity~
2007-03-01 23:31:58 · answer #2 · answered by Lady Trinity 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Is a dummy a paccifier? if so it makes your baby experience look after. Why might you desire to take it away? I bypass away my daughters %. close to her face whilst she's asleep. She unearths it somewhat at 4months. Sucking is surely organic and could take place lots extra oftentimes interior here couple of weeks. that's good for developement and that's believed that use of pacifiers might help to decrease sids. bypass away her be for now. She's purely a infant nevertheless. so a techniques as getting up a number of situations a evening it is typical. try the no sleep approach. Or put in a cd with lullabys. additionally a device that places out white noise might help. positioned her crib on the foot of your mattress. it fairly is going to enable her to experience close yet nevertheless experience risk-free. My daughter purely wakes as quickly as a evening now, yet she did not at 3 months.
2016-10-17 02:17:28 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
At 8mths old if she is only wanting it at bed/nap time she is not doing any harm ... just let her have it. But if you want to break her from it I have a few suggestions on how it can be done (used with my 2 children to break them off their binky and bottle).
1. Make up a fictational creature "i.e. Binky Fairy" similar to Santa Clause. Have your daughter help you gather up all of her "Dummies" and place them in a bag on the table .... in the morning she will wake up to find that the "Dummies" have been replaced by a bag of prices "books, puzzles, etc." .... she will be so excited over the new toys she will forget all about her "Dummy"
2. My daughter loves Elmo so I told ther that Elmo had a new baby and sadly where Elmo lives they do not sell "Dummies" and his baby is very sad. So we collected all of her "Dummies" and placed them in a box and took them to the post office to ship to Elmo. I just placed a note on the top of the box that said "Toss this in the trash when we leave ... THANK YOU"
This is one that my best freind used on her daughter .... she gathered up all the "Dummies" except for one (her daughter's favorite), attached them to a bouquet of balloons and let her daughter release them into the sky letting them float away to sleep with the stars. Then the next day they took the 1 that they saved to a "Build-A-Bear" workshop and her daughter created her very own "Dummy Bear" with her favorite "Dummy" buried inside.
Suggestion from a Pediactrician .... gradually cut off the tip of the "Dummy" every few days and after a week or two all of the suction will be gone and they will not want it anylonger.
Hope some of my suggestions help .... but accodring to my Pediactrician it is ok to let them have it until they are 1yr old after that it beings to affect the jaw and the way there teeth grow in.
2007-03-02 00:51:59 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
According to Kleinian theory, the dummy is a transitional object which represents you, the mother, as your baby moves towards self-realisation. Hence, you just have to wait until your baby is mature enough to more adequately understand its individual relationship to reality (not mother-mediated) before she stops using it. There is no way for you to accelerate the process because it is happening in your baby's mind.
2007-03-01 22:40:31 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
I put several pacifiers in my daughters crib so, when she needs one she'll crawl around for it. but she has to learn to do it so don't go in right when she cries, give her a few moments to search. When she is awake & hanging out in her crib she'll notice that there are 4 pacifiers in there & she'll get used to the notion that they are there. Hope that helps
2007-03-01 23:26:53 · answer #6 · answered by Minilover 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
my daughter from a early age only used her dummy for nap times. i left her til she was two and om the day she turned two she understood it was her birthday and she was now too big for dummies. please leave it until she understands why its going. in the end it helps her get a good night sleep.would you give up your comforter
2007-03-03 08:47:58 · answer #7 · answered by CLARE B 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i swapped the dummy for a teddy. harlee will have both until hes nearly asleep then either he'll spit it out on his own or ill pinch it. he prefers the teddy.
2007-03-02 20:10:33 · answer #8 · answered by harleemonster06 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I totally agree with Jane H. Let her have it. It's not hurting her, just comforting her. Is that a bad thing? Don't worry, you won't be sending her off to college with it!
2007-03-02 00:00:00 · answer #9 · answered by Ruby 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Though in my opinion she's a little young to be taking away her dummy try to just take it way cold turkey. Or if you want to wait until she's a little older you can try the Rosie O'Donnell method and tell her that the dummy fairy comes to take dummies away from little boys and girls so that other little boys and girls can have one. This might help! :)
2007-03-01 22:43:25 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 3⤋