Ben Gives Up His Dummy: The Book That Makes Children Want to Move on from Dummies!

We read this book every night for a week in the lead-up to giving up soothers. This story absolutely hooked my little one in, he identified so much with the little boy Ben and when it came time a week later to give our soothers to the Dummy Fairy, he just… did it. We gathered all his soothers into a bag and left them for the Dummy Fairy and he got a little teddy in return. Don’t get me wrong the longing especially on give-up night was real, but we just reminded him of the promise the Dummy Fairy made from the book (that when you miss your dummy, to imagine a food you love to eat and she’ll make it so you can taste that food in your mouth—yes that’s a bit weird but oddly enough he completely understood this and went for it!). At one part of the first night sans-soothers I could hear him making ~yummy food noises~ and realised he was imagining a food he loved to eat and he went back to sleep again. Second night, no need for much comforting. Third night, as if soothers never happened.

I was sceptical as I’m sure many of you are, that’s why you’re reading the reviews. This book is a little miracle, I’m so surprised at how well it worked. I’m not mad about the story where every time they miss the dummy they think of their favourite food. Thought that was a bit much for a 2 year old. However the story is basically like a tooth fairy for dummies, they get a present in the morning after a successful dummy free sleep. My child read this book twice and wanted to leave his dummies out that night. Success! He was so looking forward to the present in the morning that he’s not mentioned dummies today at all and when asked who gave you the dinosaur he says the fairies. It’s definitely worth a try in our experience.

This story has so much potential. But I ended up cutting out and taping up the pages about the fairy magically enabling the boy to taste his favourite food in his mouth when he missed his dummy.With these modifications I believe it is a bad pleasant and relatable story for younger children to grasp when faced with the truly difficult challenge of parting with their much loved dummy.

I was really dreading when the time came for my toddler to stop using his dummy. He was very much attached to it and I feared nights of upset over its removal. However, having read this book a couple of times to him to prepare him, the evening came for him to collect all of his dummies up into an envelope to leave for the dummy fairy. It very much helped that he loves dinosaurs (the present from the dummy fairy in the book) and was very excited to receive his dinosaur the next morning. This book has made what I anticipated to be a very tricky transition, to one that has been incredibly smooth - magic and a dinosaur, what more could a toddler want?!

I like that it talks about the boy's feelings of apprehension about taking his dummies away. That's a good talking point with my toddler. And how it goes through the simple steps of what the dummy fairies do. However, I do not like that in order to get a present in return then the boy has to be happy. Just not necessary in my opinion, as we like to validate all my toddler's feelings. The way the fairy says to deal without his dummy is again not my cup of tea - it's about imagining your favourite food and you'll be able to taste it. That might work for some people but it's not something I personally am comfortable with teaching my son. Thankfully he can't read so I've crossed out a bunch and added my own words that work for us. I feel it gets part way where we want it to go, and we can do the rest. So still useful, just needs some tweaks to be perfect.

Honestly I read some of the reviews and though yeah right this won’t work for our little boy who loves his dummy! He’s 20 months.The first night we read the story we ask if he wanted to give his dummy to the dummy fairy, no was the reply.The second night we read the book again. This time he didn’t ask for his dummy so we didn’t give it to him. He went the whole night with out. dummy. We did leave a little gift out side his door and a sticker for the morning which he loved.This book works well.

This was the nudge our just-turned-3-year-old needed :)

Nice book but hasn't helped my little one give up his dummy yet.

Brilliant book, my almost 4 year old would not give up his dummy. I’d already told him about the dummy fairy but until he read this book he would t consider it. Then 2 days after getting the book he wanted to give up his dummy. Amazing!

A cute book that helps in the process to wean your toddler of the dummy.

This book has been great for introducing the concept of the dummy fairy. My daughter is willing to give her dummies to the fairy. We particularly love the different uses the fairies have for her dummies. We do skip parts of the book I don’t agree with for example where you will get teeth like a bunny if you use your dummy too long and the bit about magically tasting food in your mouth if you miss your dummy. Luckily my two year old can’t read so it’s easy to just skip those bits.