Advice on dummies
Many children will have a dummy when they are a baby to help soothe them and aid them in getting to sleep.
Many parents often ask us about when they should stop allowing their child to have a dummy and how to do that successfully.
Our response is to try and get rid of your child’s dummy as soon as you can. It will be easier to do the younger your child is.
We encourage getting rid of a dummy sooner rather than later is for a number of reasons;
- The longer your child uses a dummy, the more chance there is that the structure of their mouth will be affected. This means it will affect how their teeth meet when they close their mouth or when they bite. This can not only affect their baby teeth, but their adult teeth later on too.
- Prolonged use of a dummy will reduce the amount of time children have to babble and when older speak. Prolonged dummy use can cause speech problems later on for some children.
- Some children can become too reliant on having their dummy and struggle if they are not able to have it or can’t find it. This can also be the case during the night that children can have disturbed and broken sleep because their dummy has fallen out which causes them to wake and become distressed.
There are lots of great books that can also be used to support your child in saying goodbye to their dummy.
If you need any help and support with helping your child to wean off using their dummy please do not hesitate to come and talk to a member of our team.
There is lots of helpful advice out there we have included links to some of these below. Please click on each picture to take you to different supportive sites.
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