Ditching the dummy

Josiah lost his dummy on Saturday. We have a spare one (bought when Xavier lost his, but its the same sort as Josiah's one) and Nat gave him that on Saturday... Yesterday we "lost" the spare one, and put him to bed without one at all.

He did really well! Didn't ask for his dummy at all, but lots of "Turn light on!" "Turn light off!" "I want my glasses!" "I lost my book!" "I lost my corner!" as he looked for something else he could control. Josiah went to sleep without his dummy, and slept all night (other than stirring a couple of times because he'd kicked off the blankets and was cold) He didn't ask for it at all, until about 20 minutes ago when he was throwing a tantrum.

Now I've just got to find his old one before he does!

That's why I need to find it first, Bee. Once we know where it is, it will stay "lost" for a little while longer, until it is really yuck (maybe with a little help from a pair of scissors) and then we'll let Josiah find it, and when he realises that his dummy isn't nice anymore, we'll encourage him to throw it into the rubbish himself.

The thing is, if he throws it out himself it brings a certian amount of closure. This is what I did with Kiya, she lost hers at a similar age to Josiah and I found it but let it stay lost because I knew she was ready to give it up. When Kiya found hers again a week later, she sucked on it a couple of times then said it was yucky and agreed to throw it out. She never asked for it again, but would say "My dummy was yucky so I put it in the rubbish bin because I'm a big girl!"

Nat and I agree Josiah is more ready to give his up now than he was when we moved (or else we would have given him the spare one to use instead). He's not trying to suck on anything else instead, whereas he used to suck on his fingers (yes, all of them at once) when he got tired and didn't have his dummy handy.

Yay, he's asleep! Straight to sleep, no problems at all! Xavier, on the other hand...