You may have noticed over the past few months that photos of Birdie with his dummy have disappeared. He used to be very, very attached to his dummy (what we call pacifiers here in the UK) and I felt some anxiety about whether he had it ‘too much.’ Since we were not giving him the dummy to silence his requests or upset feelings, but rather letting him choose to use it when he desired, I decided to see it as a form of necessary comfort for him that we would support him to reduce his dependence on gradually and respectfully. He had a rocky start in the world, and his reliance on any extra comfort was completely understandable.
We approached cutting down on dummy usage as gently as possible. When he was about 18 months old, we began reading books about letting go of dummies (Pacifiers are not Forever was our favourite) and talked about other ways he could feel comforted and calm. We never presented the dummy as a bad or babyish thing, but simply as something that is eventually outgrown.
Then we took a ‘don’t offer, don’t refuse’ approach for a few months, just like you would use to cut down on breastfeeding with older toddlers and children. When he asked for his dummy, he could have one, but we didn’t offer it to him even if he was in a situation when we would assume he’d want one - like if he fell over and banged his leg. At this point we made the distinction between ‘daytime dummies’ and ‘nighttime dummies’, since we are still not seeking to eliminate his nighttime dummy usage. Daytime dummies were plain, and nighttime ones glow in the dark. These don’t come downstairs and can’t be used during the day so they are charged up and ready for the nighttime.
We also resolved not to replenish the supply of dummies, and to help Birdie understand how many dummies he had, and that they were distinct and irreplaceable objects. He had 3 daytime dummies, and lost one almost immediately. A second one he bit through, and I definitely wavered at this point and considered buying more!
Choosing the right moment
We timed the gentle pressure to reduce dummy usage to coincide with Birdie speaking many more words, right around his second birthday. It is hard to understand a child speaking around a dummy, and he desperately wanted to be understood. We continued to remind him that it was hard to understand what he was saying, and if he could please remove the dummy to speak, we’d be better able to understand. This was great motivation for him to begin relying on the dummy less and less. We stopped taking it out anywhere with us. He understood that there was only one dummy remaining, and it would be easy to lose it. He was still using it plenty throughout the day, though, when one day we forgot to put it away when we left the house and the inevitable happened - it got lost.
For about a week, he would become upset and ask for his daytime dummy again, and then tell me the story about how he lost it. We would hug him and be supportive, giving him space to share his feelings about losing his dummy and finding new ways to be comforted. Usually he would fetch a soft toy and a book and ask to be read to - a great substitute for the comfort of a dummy. Now he doesn’t ever ask for a dummy in the daytime, even when he’s very upset. He’s better able to express his needs and really felt the reward of using the dummy less to communicate with us. Although we shaped his experience of saying goodbye to the daytime dummy, all along it felt mostly like his choice and was largely under his control. There was no need to shame him by making him feel like a ‘baby’ for using his dummy, or tell him somewhat odd stories about a fairy coming to remove his dummy and give it to other children. Instead, he got to feel the pleasure of growing up and finding new ways to feel comforted.
He does still have a dummy for sleeping, and I’m not in a hurry to remove it. I trust that when the time is right, he’ll say goodbye to it as gently as he did his daytime dummy. We only have one nighttime dummy left, so when that one gets lost or worn out, it will be finished. As he often tells us, the dummy is for now, but not forever.
