Speaker 1: Brit Laura, I think it's a bit too early to tell,
Speaker 1: or only a couple days in, but I think I
Speaker 1: have cracked the code for parents out there who want
Speaker 1: to get their kids off the.
Speaker 2: Dummy, the dummy fairy, the dummy fairy. So HiT's a
Speaker 2: few days ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, my daughter, she's four years old, Lola. There
Speaker 1: has never been a child that's more obsessed with their
Speaker 1: dummy than Lola. Like, it has been an obsession since
Speaker 1: the day she was born. And she was a very, very,
Speaker 1: very fussy baby. She didn't sleep in a cot. She
Speaker 1: only slept in a carrier with me, sitting upright with
Speaker 1: her on me. And that was the first six weeks
Speaker 1: of her life. Like, it was hard work. And the
Speaker 1: only thing in her, like you know, little four years
Speaker 1: of life, that has ever brought her comfort is her dummy.
Speaker 1: She will happily take a dummy over being cuddled. She
Speaker 1: will take her dummy over her dad, like, she will
Speaker 1: take a dummy over anything. She loves it so much.
Speaker 1: If you ask her her favorite thing, she will say
Speaker 1: her dummy. So we've tried quite a few times getting
Speaker 1: her off it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: She turned four in February, so we tried when she
Speaker 1: was two. We tried when she was three. You remember
Speaker 1: it was like I was rough man. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like she turned into a dementor.
Speaker 2: She's my contraception.
Speaker 1: She screamed NonStop for six weeks. Anyway, we've gotten to
Speaker 1: a point where we were like, she's four years old.
Speaker 1: This is getting embarrassing. Now she's going to school next year,
Speaker 1: she's got a boyfriend, she's moving out of home.
Speaker 2: We've got to get her off the dummy at university.
Speaker 1: So we decided it was time to implement the dummy Fairy. Now,
Speaker 1: the dummy Fairy seems to do different things in different households,
Speaker 1: but in our household we have had four nights now
Speaker 1: of no crying, no dummy huge and it has been
Speaker 1: a raving success.
Speaker 3: Well, then tell us the people in the car that
Speaker 3: might be wanting the dummy Fairy to come to their house,
Speaker 3: what did your dummy fairy do?
Speaker 1: You've got a call her. She's got to call the
Speaker 1: dummy Fairy on the phone. You gotta give he a
Speaker 1: ring because she needs to know when you're ready for
Speaker 1: her to come.
Speaker 2: She doesn't dumb fairy.
Speaker 1: So it's not like Santa Claus change that and it's
Speaker 1: not like the Easter of my they don't have it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have a set date. She'll come when you're
Speaker 1: ready for her to come. So you make sure that
Speaker 1: you've set the date, You've got a planned out on
Speaker 1: a calendar, you do the countdown.
Speaker 2: It's really exciting.
Speaker 1: The dummy Fairy coming is an exciting thing like Christmas.
Speaker 2: So it's like you're going.
Speaker 1: To get a present from the dummy Fairy for giving
Speaker 1: away your dummies. And yeah, we replaced it. So we
Speaker 1: made like a little ceremony about it. We got all
Speaker 1: the dummies together, we put them outside. There was five
Speaker 1: we collected them for around the house.
Speaker 3: She's been stashing them like under pillows.
Speaker 1: Well it's just in case we lose one, o case
Speaker 1: she doesn't have five at a time, So we put
Speaker 1: them all outside.
Speaker 2: We made a little letter to the dummy Fairy.
Speaker 1: I told her that, you know, the dummy Fairy is
Speaker 1: going to take them to castle. And the story just
Speaker 1: kept getting bigger and more elaborate. But Laurla got really
Speaker 1: excited about it, and she knew that she was going
Speaker 1: to get rewarded for giving away something that was really important.
Speaker 1: But it really was the cutest little thing. I'll play
Speaker 1: you this.
Speaker 2: Hey, Lola, who's coming tonight?
Speaker 1: Every Are you ready to say bye bye bye bye dummies?
Speaker 2: Give you them a kiss? Oh ball, bye bye dummies.
Speaker 2: So she made out with that last watch. She really
Speaker 2: didn't want to get that one out. She kissed them awklebye.
Speaker 2: We put them in a bowl.
Speaker 1: I put her to bed, and I gave her a
Speaker 1: present from me and Dad for her to go to
Speaker 1: bed with that night, because I was like, I know
Speaker 1: you're going to be really sad. He's a little toy
Speaker 1: from mummy and daddy for you to cuddle when you
Speaker 1: feel sad.
Speaker 2: And she woke up in the morning she got her presence.
Speaker 1: We made it like a really special time and she
Speaker 1: was so stoked. So I thought, Okay, day one that
Speaker 1: was going to be easy. Day two is gonna be hard.
Speaker 1: Day two's gonna suck. Anyway, Day two rolled around completely fine.
Speaker 1: She said one thing to me where I put it
Speaker 1: to bed and she had it like her two little
Speaker 1: toys that she got, the one from the dummy fairy
Speaker 1: and the one from me, and she goes, Mom, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking And I was like, what are you thinking about?
Speaker 1: She goes, I'm thinking a dummy would be pretty nice,
Speaker 1: and I was like, sweetheart, we don't have any. The
Speaker 1: dummy fairy took them, and she goes, I know that's
Speaker 1: why I said, I'm just thinking it.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing it. I'm thinking it. She's just more
Speaker 2: self aware now. And that was it.
Speaker 1: Like I genuinely thought it was going to be a
Speaker 1: horror show and it's been four days now and it
Speaker 1: has just been weirdly amazing.
Speaker 2: It's because.
Speaker 3: It's like I've got kids, It's because she's twenty five.
Speaker 2: It's because this.
Speaker 3: Time she came to the conclude she's old enough to
Speaker 3: come to the conclusion of making it herself. And she
Speaker 3: I think she's just because she doesn't feel like you
Speaker 3: guys are taking something from her. She made the decision
Speaker 3: like she's like, cool, I'm ready and I understand what
Speaker 3: this exchange is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that that's it. I think it's
Speaker 1: the secret in the thoughts, right, Like, my.
Speaker 3: Secret is not to let your kids still have DUMBI no,
Speaker 3: do not shamey. I'm not shaming you, but I don't
Speaker 3: want the listeners to be like, hey, Laura.
Speaker 2: Said, the secret is to keep a dummy to your
Speaker 2: foot sounds for shaming.
Speaker 1: I think it's about letting the kids have a little
Speaker 1: bit of sense of control and feeling as though you're
Speaker 1: not just taking away from them, but that it's something
Speaker 1: to be excited about when the dummy fairy comes that
Speaker 1: even though they're losing that thing they want, they feed
Speaker 1: off how you react to something. And the other times
Speaker 1: it's been super stressful, it's been like a countdown and
Speaker 1: then it's like, Okay, no more dummy, and it felt
Speaker 1: like a punishment.
Speaker 2: Whereas this felt like a reward.
Speaker 1: I know I'm too early to tell you exactly how
Speaker 1: it's going to go down, but it has been surprisingly
Speaker 1: amazing so far.
Speaker 3: I'm happy for you, and I'm actually more happy for
Speaker 3: Lola same and.
Speaker 1: I'm happy for our dental bills for the future the Veneers.
Speaker 2: She doesn't need to get now.