Made in the Netherlands, for families at home
A short story that helps a toddler give the dummy away on purpose — and a quiet routine for the parent holding the other hand.
Most pacifier advice ends the same way: one evening the dummy is gone, and a two-year-old who cannot yet ask what happened spends the night finding out. It works, often. It also costs a few hard nights that nobody enjoys, least of all the child.
Dop Is Kwijt takes the other route. The dummy is not taken — it is given. The story gives the child a reason, a moment and a small job to do, and it happens while the parent is sitting right there. The ending is the same ending; the child arrives at it as the one who decided.
The story runs about as long as a picture book. There is nothing to read: the words are spoken, the pages turn with a tap, and the child is asked to do one thing at a time — wave, wrap, press, wave again. On the last page the dummy is somewhere else and the child has a certificate with their own name on it.
A lamp, a phone on the duvet, and one small person doing something big.
An illustrated story in which the dummy is passed on, not confiscated. Narrated out loud, so a child who cannot read follows every word. The child's own name can be spoken in it.
Seven short evenings, one screen each: what to say tonight, what to do with the dummy tonight, and what to do when the asking starts again at two in the morning.
Big targets, no menus, no timers and nothing that can be bought by accident. A toddler can hold the phone alone without ending up somewhere else.
Filled in at the end of the story and kept in the app, or printed on an ordinary home printer and put on the door. Children ask to show it to people — that is the point of it.
How to pick the evening, what to do about the daytime dummy, how long the restless nights usually last, and what to say to grandparents who keep a spare one in the drawer.
Tell us which of these fits your situation and we will point you at the right one.
The whole thing for one household: the story, the goodbye week and the certificate, on the phones you already use.
For families whose child has already said goodbye and needs the nights after it held together.
The keepsake side: a certificate to print, plus a small card to send to the grandparents who ask how it went.
For groups where several toddlers reach this step in the same month and the leaders want the same words as the parents.
Nothing here is a medical programme. It is a story and a routine, written for ordinary toddlers and ordinary tired evenings.
The form at the bottom of this page. One line about your child's age and how attached they are to the dummy is enough — you do not have to explain the whole situation.
Which of the options above fits, how to set it up on your phone, and whether this is a good month for it at all. Sometimes the honest answer is to wait a few weeks.
A calm one, nobody ill, no new bed, no first week at a new nursery. The routine tells you what to put in place the day before so the story is not a surprise.
You read it together, the child does the handing over, the certificate gets their name. Then the week of short evening screens keeps the story going until nobody mentions the dummy any more.
We will not tell you this takes one night. For some children it does. For others there are two or three broken nights where the dummy is asked for in a small, furious voice at three in the morning, and the only thing that helps is that you both already know how the story ended.
That is what the goodbye week is for. It gives you the same sentence to say every time, so the answer does not change depending on how tired you are — and a child who hears the same answer twice stops testing it.
Two things we think are worth saying plainly. Give it back if you need to; starting again next month is not a failure, and the story still works the second time. And keep the certificate where the child can see it, because on the fourth day it does more arguing than you will.
If you are not sure whether your toddler is ready, write to us and describe them. We would rather talk you out of a bad week than sell you one.
Leave your name and email and tell us where you are with the dummy. A person reads it and writes back.
We have your message and someone will get in touch shortly with a suggestion for your child.
This page uses cookies for analytics and advertising measurement, but only after you give your consent. Learn more