Brit Laura, I think it's a bit too early to tell, or only a couple days in, but I think I have cracked the code for parents out there who want to get their kids off the.
Dummy, the dummy fairy, the dummy fairy. So HiT's a few days ago.
Yeah, okay, my daughter, she's four years old, Lola. There has never been a child that's more obsessed with their dummy than Lola. Like, it has been an obsession since the day she was born. And she was a very, very, very fussy baby. She didn't sleep in a cot. She only slept in a carrier with me, sitting upright with her on me. And that was the first six weeks
of her life. Like, it was hard work. And the only thing in her, like you know, little four years of life, that has ever brought her comfort is her dummy. She will happily take a dummy over being cuddled. She will take her dummy over her dad, like, she will take a dummy over anything. She loves it so much. If you ask her her favorite thing, she will say her dummy. So we've tried quite a few times getting her off it.
You know.
She turned four in February, so we tried when she was two. We tried when she was three. You remember it was like I was rough man. Yeah, it was like she turned into a dementor.
She's my contraception.
She screamed NonStop for six weeks. Anyway, we've gotten to a point where we were like, she's four years old. This is getting embarrassing. Now she's going to school next year, she's got a boyfriend, she's moving out of home.
We've got to get her off the dummy at university.
So we decided it was time to implement the dummy Fairy. Now, the dummy Fairy seems to do different things in different households, but in our household we have had four nights now of no crying, no dummy huge and it has been a raving success.
Well, then tell us the people in the car that might be wanting the dummy Fairy to come to their house, what did your dummy fairy do?
You've got a call her. She's got to call the dummy Fairy on the phone. You gotta give he a ring because she needs to know when you're ready for her to come.
She doesn't dumb fairy.
So it's not like Santa Claus change that and it's not like the Easter of my they don't have it. She doesn't have a set date. She'll come when you're ready for her to come. So you make sure that you've set the date, You've got a planned out on a calendar, you do the countdown.
It's really exciting.
The dummy Fairy coming is an exciting thing like Christmas.
So it's like you're going.
To get a present from the dummy Fairy for giving away your dummies. And yeah, we replaced it. So we made like a little ceremony about it. We got all the dummies together, we put them outside. There was five we collected them for around the house.
She's been stashing them like under pillows.
Well it's just in case we lose one, o case she doesn't have five at a time, So we put them all outside.
We made a little letter to the dummy Fairy.
I told her that, you know, the dummy Fairy is going to take them to castle. And the story just kept getting bigger and more elaborate. But Laurla got really excited about it, and she knew that she was going to get rewarded for giving away something that was really important. But it really was the cutest little thing. I'll play you this.
Hey, Lola, who's coming tonight?
Every Are you ready to say bye bye bye bye dummies?
Give you them a kiss? Oh ball, bye bye dummies. So she made out with that last watch. She really didn't want to get that one out. She kissed them awklebye. We put them in a bowl.
I put her to bed, and I gave her a present from me and Dad for her to go to bed with that night, because I was like, I know you're going to be really sad. He's a little toy from mummy and daddy for you to cuddle when you feel sad.
And she woke up in the morning she got her presence.
We made it like a really special time and she was so stoked. So I thought, Okay, day one that was going to be easy. Day two is gonna be hard. Day two's gonna suck. Anyway, Day two rolled around completely fine. She said one thing to me where I put it to bed and she had it like her two little toys that she got, the one from the dummy fairy and the one from me, and she goes, Mom, I'm thinking And I was like, what are you thinking about? She goes, I'm thinking a dummy would be pretty nice,
and I was like, sweetheart, we don't have any. The dummy fairy took them, and she goes, I know that's why I said, I'm just thinking it.
I'm not doing it. I'm thinking it. She's just more self aware now. And that was it.
Like I genuinely thought it was going to be a horror show and it's been four days now and it has just been weirdly amazing.
It's because.
It's like I've got kids, It's because she's twenty five.
It's because this.
Time she came to the conclude she's old enough to come to the conclusion of making it herself. And she I think she's just because she doesn't feel like you guys are taking something from her. She made the decision like she's like, cool, I'm ready and I understand what this exchange is.
Yeah, but I think that that's it. I think it's the secret in the thoughts, right, Like, my.
Secret is not to let your kids still have DUMBI no, do not shamey. I'm not shaming you, but I don't want the listeners to be like, hey, Laura.
Said, the secret is to keep a dummy to your foot sounds for shaming.
I think it's about letting the kids have a little bit of sense of control and feeling as though you're not just taking away from them, but that it's something to be excited about when the dummy fairy comes that even though they're losing that thing they want, they feed off how you react to something. And the other times it's been super stressful, it's been like a countdown and then it's like, Okay, no more dummy, and it felt like a punishment.
Whereas this felt like a reward.
I know I'm too early to tell you exactly how it's going to go down, but it has been surprisingly amazing so far.
I'm happy for you, and I'm actually more happy for Lola same and.
I'm happy for our dental bills for the future the Veneers.
She doesn't need to get now.