The Meanest of Them All…?! How to wean a toddler off their dummy.

Despite our very best intentions, the twins are real dummy-lovers! Having twins means that you do look at ways to comfort two babies at once and dummies were real life savers in the early months.

When they were around 18-months-old we’d done really well at getting them to have their dummies just at nap time and bedtime. Then they both got poorly with tonsillitis and Biscuit had all her breathing problems, so we relapsed and let them have them all the time.

Fast forward six months and my now-two-year-olds love them still. Biscuit seems to be self weaning herself off them. She will often not want it during the day and mostly goes to sleep without one (as long as she knows where it is, you can’t trust these sneaky Mamas with dummies you know!). But Cracker is a different kettle of fish. He is obsessed with his dummy and wants it all the time, in bed, in the bath, when out and about, when playing at home, you get the gist! He doesn’t have one when he’s at the childminders, I was afraid of him losing it so never sent him with one, and he’s mostly okay. When he’s really interested in playing at home, he’ll forget about it then too.
We are now seriously trying to get him to leave it just for sleep times (whether that be nap or bedtime), but I feel SO mean! At his age he knows what he wants and how to ask for it (at ever increasing decibel levels) and has been getting so upset at times. We have reinforced that dummies are just for bedtimes, so yesterday he spent the afternoon asking if he could go to bed! So far this morning is going a little better, with only a few requests for it.
My mum and dad hate “not being able to see their faces” when I send them pictures of Biscuit and Cracker with their dummies in! And dummies can cause issues with speech (as some children don’t want to open their mouth to talk for fear of losing their dummies) and teeth-alignment. Biscuit and Cracker were always happy taking their dummies out to talk and we made sure that they had ‘teeth-friendly’, orthodontic dummies. But still, if we can then I would prefer they didn’t have them.
I have given advice to many parents about getting their children to ‘leave it for the fairies’ or (at Christmas) ‘leave it for Rudolph’s new babies as they don’t have Boots at the North Pole’ over the years, but Cracker doesn’t seem interested in them. Maybe he’s too young? Or maybe he’s simply too attached to his beloved dummy to care?!!!!
Do any of you lovely people have any other hints or tips, or even words of support that it does get easier and we should just stick with it?

Language

I have been thinking a lot about language recently. For a start, I am married to a full-blown Italian. He may be fluent in English (so much so that people often forget he is in fact, gasp, foreign) but his family aren’t.
Raising bilingual babies brings about challenges of it’s own. Plus, with Biscuit and Cracker having just turned two, I have their impending health review coming up with the inevitable questions regarding their speech and language development.
Speech and language development provides a fascinating insight into your little ones brain and the speed at which it grows and matures. Children go from being able to say 0 words at 6 months, to around 1-3 at 12 months, around 10-20 at 18 months, 50+ at 2 years, 200+ at 2 1/2 years (yep an increase of around 150 words in just 6 months), 500-1000 at 3 years, 1000-1500 at 4 years and 1500-2000 at 5 years. That is enormous growth, and absolutely amazing. I find myself open-mouthed at how the twins seem to have new words every single day. Biscuit came out with a four word sentence the other day, what a genius!!
On top of this, as I mentioned, Biscuit and Cracker are learning two languages at once. Rob only speaks to them in Italian and I only speak to them in English (probably a good thing as the words I know in Italian are not for little ears!). This includes our reading books- Rob is currently reading them the Harry Potter series in Italian and they have lots of kids books in Italian too.
An issue we did think of was that about 90% of the twins’ language influence is English. So we looked for kids DVDs in Italian (and found Bob The Builder and Everything’s Rosie) which they really enjoy watching. We also now get films in Italian, so they watch Frozen on a daily basis whilst learning another language (that also helps me too, it’s amazing what you pick up from Disney films and songs).
If you’re interested in getting your kids (or you) into a second language, watching familiar films and listening to music really does help. Rob says that’s how he started learning English- by watching Jurassic Park over and over again!
As they get older, we will probably have a look at them having some formal Italian teaching (to help with the grammar etc) but for now I stay amazed at how they soak up words and know more every day. They already put me to shame!!!