This morning we went to the dentist.
It was the little one’s first ever trip to the dentist and she was amazingly well behaved. Sometimes she really astounds me. I know she can be naughty but she is rarely very naughty when we are out.
So she waited patiently in the waiting room while the hubby saw the dentist.
She was great in the dentists chair, opening her mouth and closing it when she needed to.
She waited patiently with the hubby while I went in.
The dentist did say that there were signs that the dummies were pushing the teeth out and that we should make sure that by the time she was 3 that we had removed them or else it would start to impact her adult teeth as they grew.
That was it, I didn’t need telling twice.
We have already been prepping the little one to remove the dummies. We have been telling her that babies need dummies to stop them crying and that she isn’t a baby but a little girl.
She agrees. But still wants her dummy for sleep.
We only gave her a dummy late in her life anyway. We were both vehemently against them. But when she was at least 6 months old we decided to give her a dummy to try and settle her in the car because she really didn’t like the car.
Nowhere else.
Then she was teething and we gave her a dummy so she had something to chew on.
But no other time.
And then somehow, suddenly, she had a dummy whenever she slept.
And then she had to have 6-8 dummies at bedtime. How the heck did that happen?
So this afternoon I fetched an envelope and let the little one put all her dummies in it. We wrote “Babies” on the front and left it for Postman Pat to take and deliver.
All good.
Then bedtime came and she cried “My dummies”
We had the conversation about where they had gone and why she shouldn’t have them any more. She was ok with it again but after I left the room she cried on the landing “dummies!”
We had a couple of visits to the loo, extra cuddles, “hush little baby” 3 times (rather than once) and even more cuddles.
At first she found 2 dummies in the bed “oh look these dummies” and cried when I stuck them in my pocket.
Second time there she had one on her pillow (she squirrels them away) but she passed it to me without putting it in her mouth “for the babies”
And that’s it.
I felt sorry for her because she needed to learn a new technique to settle herself. But she’s done it and in not much more time than usual.
Of course there will be another challenge tomorrow and I’m sure we will have another problem when she wakes up through the night.
But we are on our way with Operation Dummy and as she doesn’t have them through the day it’s only night time that we need to worry about.
