Help your child say bye-bye to their dummy

By age four, the dummy should be gone completely to avoid teeth damage.

It's harder for some children to give up the dummy than others when the time comes - and parents should be prepared to show patience and tenacity when helping their child move on from the beloved pacifier.

At the latest, once the child turns two years old, the dummy should be brought out only to calm the child down or to help the little one go to sleep. By age four, the dummy should be gone completely to avoid teeth damage.

One small initial step towards weaning your child off the dummy is to no longer put it in your child's mouth, offering it only when the child can reach for something. If the child is fine, simply put the dummy away completely.

"Out of sight, out of mind," says Margret Ziegler, a paediatrician at the kbo children's centre in Munich, Germany. To wean your child for good, performing a ritual can be handy - for example, the "dummy fairy" could take it in return for a small gift.

Ziegler says that it's not the end of the world if things don't happen overnight. "Children need repetition. At some point they notice that they're too old for their dummy," says the expert. - dpa