Wednesday, March 2, 2011

To wean or not to wean


As with most baby habits, there comes a point when you have to wean them. The breastfeeding, the formula, the bottle, all done and dusted. Now we have the dummy.

Anna wasn’t always such a fan. In the very beginning she had trouble keeping it in her mouth, until we switched to the current cherry-shaped dummy. Ever since she’s been using it for sleep. Now that we travel for more than an hour in the car each day (Sydney traffic is getting worse) she started requesting it each time she’s strapped in. I suppose it is partly our fault. We used to feed her a snack in the car on the way home but to make sure that she still eats her dinner once we’re home we’d sometimes offer the dummy when she starts complaining. Now we’re stuck with a screaming Anna until dummy is fetched.

Recently, I met up with a few mums at a cafĂ©, Anna was using her dummy to try to fall asleep when one of the mums said “Oh Anna, you look too big to be using a dummy”. Immediately, I felt guilty. I comfort myself by thinking: well, she doesn’t use it all day like some babies. But should I be concerned that her use has increased? Will it be one of those things that she’ll all of a sudden stop doing one day because she simply ‘grows’ out of it?

In the meantime, I’ll just be happy that she has a cure for her sore ears for our upcoming flights and I'll enjoy it every time she says ‘Ta’ and hands back her dummy at the end of the car trip :)

To other parents out there reading this, any advice on what we should do?

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