The fairy method, in short
Over a few evenings your child gathers every dummy in the house into a box they have decorated, and leaves it out for Ditch. Ditch takes them away and uses her fairy magic to turn them into a star, and in their place leaves a letter. From then on, on the hard nights, there is a star to go and look for instead of a flat no.
Why it works
Because your child does the giving. Having a comfort taken away is something that happens to a toddler, and the only answer available to them is to protest until it comes back. Handing it over is something they do: they chose the night, they filled the box, and the dummy did not vanish, it became something. A star cannot be given back, and it is still theirs. The Science goes through it properly.
What families tend to find
- The first night is often easier than they feared. It runs on excitement. Night two or three is usually the hard one, and that is normal rather than a sign it is failing.
- The star does a lot of the work. At bedtime there is something to point at and talk about, which is far easier to give a small child than an explanation.
- The box matters more than it looks. A child who decorated it has usually already decided to hand it over.
- It gets easier quickly. For most children the sharp part is a few nights, and sleep is back to normal within a week to ten days.
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