Cold Turkey

Some people are funny about giving dummies to babies. When G was a few days old and constantly making a sucking motion with her mouth even after being well-breastfed, the visiting midwife was a bit reluctant to tell us to use them. Lacking sleep, we weren't bothered at all, and G has been sleeping happily with the aid of dummies more or less ever since.

But you can't keep giving your baby a dummy forever. I stopped carrying them around ages ago, because I didn't want to keep giving them to G, only to one day send her off to school and realise that she was still sucking away. I don't find much embarrassing as a parent, but that's something that I would very much like to avoid.

So, even though G has only been using dummies during her afternoon nap and at night for a long while, I think it's time to get rid of them altogether. Dummies are for babies after all, and with G 18 months old today and toddling around happily, she's definitely not a baby anymore.

And the early signs are that going cold turkey might just work. G has just had her first dummy-free afternoon snooze and, although it took her a while to drift off, she managed it eventually. Her continuing obsession with shoes might be harder to shift, though.