I always have a lot of questions about accommodati I always have a lot of questions about accommodation when we stay anywhere as a family so I thought I’d share this little tour of our room at @windjammerlanding which was a pretty perfect place to stay.

It’s the ‘Ocean View Two Bedroom’ which was like a little house, with an upstairs and downstairs, built into the hillside. Both rooms had outdoor space and their own shower rooms. Such a great option for a family.
A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. We’ve been back a few days now but still miss the heat, the food, the pool, the constant sounds of wildlife and the lovely people. It was such a great holiday and I’m sure we’ll be back one day.
And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is watching her grow and what a wonderful young woman she is becoming. We could not be more proud. Love you Pickle, have a great birthday.
We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in S We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in St Lucia staying at @windjammerlanding and it was just the holiday we needed. Two weeks of sunshine and relaxation in what must be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. 

We can’t wait to go back again in the future. Here’s just a little snippet of our trip.
AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @na AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @national_motor_museum despite the rain! The children loved the Little Beaulieu play area and we loved exploring the National Motor Museum and Top Gear exhibit before having a ride on the monorail! We went on an old open topped bus, explored the Beaulieu Manor House and loved the gardens. 
Beaulieu is always a great day out - whatever the weather. This summer they have a whole ‘Summer of Fun’ planned, with activities most days - parades, bird shows and hundreds of sculptures within the grounds too. If you’re looking for a day out this summer definitely think about heading to Beaulieu.
AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to t AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to their first concert - but it was so much more than just a concert! @abbavoyage is incredible. With CGI ABBA and a live band, it’s like being at an ABBA concert 40 years ago but with modern lighting, effects and sound. ABBA look and sound real, it’s a mind blowing experience.
The set includes all the songs you know and love as well as a few less familiar ones.
You can’t take photos during the show which actually made a refreshing change. A whole arena focused purely on the show and soaking up the moment. It’s definitely something the four of us will always remember.
Now, I’m off to sing Dancing Queen all the way home.
AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdo AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdockyard today. They have a fantastic Ultimate Explorer ticket that lets you visit all the attractions as many times as you like for 12 months - and after a day at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard we can see that you need more than one day to really do everything!

We explored HMS Warrior, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose Exhibition - which is incredible! We also saw where ships are built and restored and spent time in Action Stations where the kids climbed and did an assault course.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is such a fun, educational day out with something for all ages - we can’t wait to go on their harbour tours next time we visit!
AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To cel AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To celebrate #100YearOfARoads National Highways have launched their #ARoadsToSummer competition! It's all about celebrating summer holiday moments, time together, fun in the sun, days out and more.

So why not be in it to win it? To enter, all you have to do is send @nationalhways a DM on here with a photo or video of your favourite holiday moments. You can also comment on their Facebook or Twitter #ARoadsToSummer posts with your holiday photos. I've shared a few of our favourite photos to give you some inspiration.

The best six entries will each win a £500 @nationaltrust holidays voucher! SO what are you waiting for? Dig out your favourite holiday photos or take some new ones to share!

The #ARoadsToSummer competition runs from 24 July to 10 September 2023. Winners will be announced in September 2023.

Good luck!
Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. As school draws to a close at lunchtime, I’m looking forward to a whole summer with them. My favourite people.

They’ve both had a great year at school this year. Troy’s first without his sister by his side and Athena’s first at secondary school. 

They both had great reports, always did their best and have made some really lovely new friends this year. I could not be more proud of them.

Now, let’s go and enjoy the next six weeks before school starts all over again!
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Opinion/Debate · August 2, 2013

An Insight into my Childhood – Dummies

This post contains affiliate links and I may receive commission if you visit a link and buy something. Purchasing via an affiliate link doesn’t cost you any extra, and I only recommend products and services I trust.

I’m quite open minded when it comes to parenting, each to their own. I feel that being a parent, especially the first year, is all about survival and a parent needs to do whatever they need to do in order to get through and survive.

Breastfeeding, formula feeding, purées, finger foods, baby led weaning, co sleeping, cry it out, controlled crying, Gina Ford. Whatever works for you.

Everyone has a line though and mine is with dummies. I just can’t agree with them and they are not something I would ever use unless they were medically necessary. I hate them.

I hate seeing newborn babies with lumps of plastic covering half their faces. At the other end of the scale, seeing 2,3,4 year olds walking around with dummies is horrendous too. I just don’t see a need for it.

But, my thoughts on summies aren’t unfounded. I don’t hate dummies just because they’re ugly and look awful in photos. This topic is quite close to my heart.

I, like a lot of children, had a dummy and I remember my dummy vividly. It was orange plastic with a teat that had gone yellow from years of use. I had it day and night for years and it was my most treasured possession.

When my parents thought I’d had the dummy long enough and realised it had become a problem they decided it was time to go cold turkey with it. I remember clearly being told to say bye bye to the dummy and to put it in the toilet. My parents then flushed the toilet and I screamed like I’ve never screamed before.

I was 4 years old.

That dummy was such a huge part of my life and I wouldn’t go anywhere without it, I slept with it and I carried it everywhere. I only took it out of my mouth to eat! It was attached to me constantly for such a long time.

The trouble was that I had learnt to talk with a dummy in my mouth. I would push the teat to the side of my mouth and talk around it. When that dummy was taken away from me I may as well have been mute, none of my words were clear and the pronunciation was completely off.

I had speech therapy for at least a year after getting rid of the dummy as no-one could understand me. I couldn’t pronounce my L’s or S’s mainly and remember the therapy sessions as though they were yesterday. My mother and I would walk to the Health Centre after my nursery session once a week and sit in a room with a lady surrounded by toys. She’d get me to talk about the toys and even gave me homework – I remember having to colour in a picture of a snake with s words all over it. Each time I said one of the s words I could colour a section.

After a year. ‘nake’ became Snake, ‘yo-yie’ became Lolly or Lorry, ‘yam’ became Lamb. It was a slow process and one that wouldn’t have been necessary if it hadn’t been for the dummy.

This was an incredibly stressful time for me as a child – and no doubt for my parents too. Looking back I cannot believe that my parents gave me a dummy and let me keep it for so many years. I am sure they had the same thoughts as well.

Because of what I went through I cannot stand dummies. I look at dummies and I see a shy, uncomfortable, little redheaded girl who spent the first four years of her life with the comfort of that dummy. I see the trauma of dummies being taken away and the difficulty of learning to speak properly again without a dummy in her mouth. I see such much unnecessary stress and upset. It’s something I just couldn’t put my children through.

LP never had a dummy and Little Man will never have one either. I would hate for my children to have to go through what I went through as a child because of a choice I’ve made to give them a dummy to make my own life as a parent easier. It’s completely different if they have a medical condition that dictates the need for a dummy but I know these cases are a minority.

When you give something to your child as a comforter you have to think that one day you will need to take that away and the implications that could have for your child. I think this is something many parents don’t think about when giving their baby a dummy for the first time but it was the first thought for me.

An Insight into my Childhood - Dummies
Dummies

In: Opinion/Debate

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Comments

  1. Cheryl Hoddell says

    August 2, 2013 at 9:39 am

    If you don’t get them off one by 12 months it’s really bloody hard. I hate seeing toddlers and young children with them all day, for sleep is one thing but not constantly. I quite like the Supernanny way of putting them in a envelope and sending them to the dummy fairy. She says ‘lots of babies needs these dummies and you’re not a baby are you? You’re a big girl, only babies need dummies’. We tried E with one at 8 weeks out of desperation but I was relieved when he didn’t take to it.

    Reply
  2. Sarah says

    August 2, 2013 at 7:37 am

    A dummy saved my sanity. B had silent reflux when he was a baby and before we got the right medication for him, giving him a dummy meant the sucking action and subsequent saliva, alleviated some of his symptoms.

    However he stopped having a dummy when he was 9 months old. Just refused it.

    However I still feed him to sleep for naps and before bed, maybe I am a dummy now?!

    Reply
  3. Hayley A says

    August 2, 2013 at 10:13 am

    This was really interesting to read Donna – thank you for sharing. My two have both had dummies. April finally ‘released’ hers (without any issue thankfully) about 9 months ago, and I’m already planting the seed with Esther as hers seems to be creeping out of the bedroom more and more, and it’s becoming part of her face – which isn’t nice. But, for me, okay maybe I wouldn’t go so far as to say either of them ‘needed’ it, but it has helped them both settle to sleep (I couldn’t do that – breastfeeding didn’t go exactly to plan for me but that’s another story!) which in turn has made them and me happier. All good fun isn’t it… this parenting malarkey!

    Reply
  4. Lauren (@laurenbigeejit) says

    August 4, 2013 at 8:58 am

    I completely agree with you especially about the toddlers running around with a dummy in their mouths. Drives me mad. I was a thumb sucker as a child and it comes with its own problems… my speech wasn’t affected BUT I had a gap in my teeth where my top teeth jutted out 8mm over my bottom teeth. I had to have a brace at age 12 (and it was only then I stopped sucking my thumb – I guess a dummy is easier to remove!) and it completely wrecked my teeth as they’d softened under the plastic and now all my back molars are riddled with fillings. I have had the most horrendous experiences at the dentist (such as 12 fillings in 3 days) I wouldn’t wish on any child!

    Reply
  5. Rachael (Mushroomsmum) says

    April 6, 2014 at 9:53 pm

    It sounds like your experience was really traumatic and I’m sorry to hear that, flushing the dummy down the toilet seems harsh! It may seem crazy but I re introduced the dummy when Mushroom was 18 months (he had one earlier for reflux) to wean him as he was still breastfeeding at night & it was the only thing that worked! It was just for sleep at first but by 2.5yrs it crept into the days when he was tired/shy/nervous… I always intended it to be gone by 3 though & he knew this. It went to the dummy fairy last week and he asked for it a few times but we’ve had no tears. His speech isn’t affected but that may be because he didn’t have it all the time… It’s tough the choices we make isn’t it? I was always embarrassed about his dummy and rarely told people if I didn’t need to… But it saved me as it wasn’t until then that he slept through the night!

    Reply
    • Donna Wishart says

      April 6, 2014 at 11:20 pm

      I completely understand your reasons, and a lot of people’s reasons and most children do just have them at night – They need some sort of comfort and a lot of the time a dummy works. The only reason it got to be an issue with me was because it wasn’t limited to bed times, it was all the time which is why my speech suffered. I’m glad mushroom has dealt with it well x

      Reply
  6. Emma T says

    August 10, 2014 at 6:29 pm

    I’m in agreement with you. I detest dummies and hate to see children walking round with them, especially those who are talking.

    I didn’t want N to have one, but then after one bad night I decided we’d try to get him asleep with one. But he refused. I was quite pleased about it, but he’s now a thumb sucker. And sucks really hard, so the dentist has said next visit if he’s not cutting it out, she’ll get stern with him before his milk teeth start falling out.

    He does have a taggy blanket comforter which he has at night and when he’s tired watching tv, and that’s when he sucks his thumb so I think once we remove the comforter he’ll hopefully stop. It’s a shame as much as I hate dummies, he probably wouldn’t have been a thumb sucker and a dummy would have been easier to get rid of. He’s quite relaxed if his taggy is in the wash or missing (the problem is he then just finds another soft toy with a label,) so I’m not worried about it going.

    Reply
  7. Esther @ Inside Out & About says

    September 14, 2016 at 8:29 pm

    This is such an interesting read Donna. None have mine would properly take a dummy, but I do think this is probably down to very little perseverance on our part! I would hate to take something away, and as soon as they get teeth I know they can really affect the shape in lots of ways, so I’d want to get rid of it as soon as teeth poked through anyway (I’m a tad obsessed about teeth)! They did help me with O for the first couple of weeks when my nipples were sore, but it was soon gone. I feel so so sad that all of this happened to you. Speech therapy sounds traumatic. One of my nephews has just got rid of a dummy at 3.5 years and his pronunciation is bad…people seem to think it’s funny or cute, but I think it’s sad because only his parents can understand him! I love that you have such a strong view on something so common – it’s so good to put things out there and sorry you had to go through all of that xx

    Reply
    • Donna Wishart says

      September 14, 2016 at 9:30 pm

      Thanks for reading Esther. I’m not sure I would be so strong in my opinions now as I was a couple of years ago – but I still stand by them. I found it all so traumatic, and still remember it all so vividly. I’m glad I didn’t need to use dummies with mine and I hope your nephew’s speech improves – the speech therapy was fine really, it could be an option for him x

      Reply

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