When is the best time to stop using dummy/pacifier?
I think dummies have a bad rap, when really they are a godsend. They are a comfort item just as much as a teddy bear or a blankie. As long as you sort of restric the usage to times of need – bedtime and ouchies, for example, I don’t think you’ll have a problem. By 7-8 months, my first born son was ‘attached’ to his dummy. I sort of always discouraged him using it if he was playing happily. He was quite an early talker, speaking coherently and in sentences at 18 months, so by then I definitely was discouraging its usage; if ever he began to speak while it was in his mouth, I would make him give it to me — this always worked well. I would hide them in the morning, with the notion that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ – first thing in the morning would do the trick, but he would always manage to find a stray one in the toy box or under the couch LOL. A few weeks before he turned 2, he seemingly out of the blue (but, really, I had been controllinh their usage for some time) started to say “Yuc