She was starting nursery. Did she really have to give up her dummy too?

Nora had laid out everything for the first day of nursery: a little backpack, a water bottle, spare clothes and the name label for Iris, her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Then she noticed the dummy.

For a little while, Nora had been gently limiting when Iris used it. Not so much during the day, mostly at bedtime or when Iris was very tired. And suddenly, starting nursery seemed like the perfect time to be done with it.

New nursery, new stage, no more dummy.

It made sense. Almost too much sense.

Because as she watched Iris fall asleep that evening, Nora also remembered everything that would change the next day: a new room, new adults, lots of children, lunch somewhere other than home and a nap in an unfamiliar bed.

Maybe the first day did not also have to be the day the dummy disappeared.

Starting nursery does not have to mean stopping everything

When a child starts nursery with a dummy still very much part of their routine, it is easy to feel as if the question needs to be settled before the first day.

As if school drew a clear line between “little” and “big”.

But you can also take the dummy away at certain moments before taking it away altogether.

Rules vary from one nursery to another, so Nora started by asking how things worked at Iris’s. She found out the dummy could stay in the bag during the day and come out again at naptime.

In the end, that was much like what they already did at home.

Iris did not need to choose between having her dummy everywhere and losing it altogether. She could start learning that it could be there for some moments without coming along to every activity.

And most of all, Nora did not need to turn the first day into another deadline.

Reduce its use gradually instead of setting a cut-off date

That does not mean a child needs a dummy indefinitely. But if the aim is to reduce its place in the day, we can sometimes start by noticing when the child actually needs it.

For Iris, it was mostly at sleep time.

So Nora stopped talking about “giving up the dummy” and started talking about where it would wait.

On the first morning, Iris asked for her dummy before they left. Nora showed her the little pouch in her bag. Iris checked it was there, then zipped it up.

She did not need it at that moment. Mostly, she needed to know it had not disappeared.

The first day already brought plenty of new things.

The dummy could wait its turn.