No..

I was more appreciating your humour...me old mucker.

Those scenarios are the ones I would not like. When the dummy becomes a surrogate of some sort.

Hey..I give my son little pieces of banana to wind his neck in...

I'm not criticising use of dummies either...what my wife said which I thought was typical of her, was that you should not 'stop up' a child for your benefit.

I don't think all kids use their thumb.

You give your son pieces of bananas ?? Jeez... You're a rich bar steward, giving yer kid bananas.... bet you'll be buying the kid a souped up ute to hoon in too as soon as he reaches 17......

No I wouldn't!! Surprised at such a comment from you! The statement was made to show that I practised what I preach. What other people do is up to them. Each child is different as are the parents and one assumes that each parent does what they think is best for their child/children.
I thought that this thread was a discussion of different views not one in which people were judgmental.

Maybe Asian parents have the right idea?
(My sons showed me this. OH's behaviour is spookily similar )

Gee...it did not even occur to me that bananas would raise eyebrows...of course..

We buy stacks of them - daily.

Has never occured to me to look at supermarket prices. I can barely remember what they are doing day to day - let alone during a month or two.

Obviously, you have more money than sense. The rest of us are imagining being so rich that you can ignore the price of bananas and just buy them.

Every time it is discussed, I genuinely put it down to BE tittle-tattle...
Like the discussions on lettuce - I didn't think anyone took it seriously.

Just had a conversation with the neighbors and I brought up the subject. They quoted 15 a Kilo and I must buy 6-10 every time Chief sends me down there...
It's possible that our banana habit is costing hundreds of dollars a month! I give 2 to my 18 mnth son yesterday when I was stagging on with him during the morning and he has a bit in his porridge..

Many people here earn more than I do!

Roughly 4 bananas in a kg so it looks like you could be spending $30 on bananas each time you go.

I hated dummies with a passion, on account of my mum hating dummies with a passion. She was always pointing out dummied kids and saying their parents must be thick lol. And they would all have speech defects. and it was cruel "how would you feel walking around with a stopper" etc

then I had my first who was prem. I had a note on the little box thing she lived in saying no dummies and then this paeditrician called me in and said actually that was cruel. She needed to learn to suck and she didnt have me and what exactly was I trying to achieve.

So I was completely guilt ridden, first time mother thinking I had scarred her for life and plugged in a dummy forthwith.

My mother was constantly on about it although I explained, and not that I cared but you I also kind of thought her mouth was so lovely I wouldnt mind seeing it.

So at 10 months I took itoff her - shes nearly 7 now and has a thumb stuck so far in its almost making her gag - her teeth are all to hell and her jaw appears to be changing shape. I think perhaps I took it off her too soon instead of just going the 2 years or so till she didnt have such a strong suck reflex.

My 2nd I didnt want a dummy and we walked around all the centres with her soaking wet from constantly sucking her clothes - I mean she was literally wet through so I got her a blanket. which she promptly put to her face, put two fingers in her mouth and got addicted to that.

My little boy just didnt need anything, not even a toy. I tried to encourage him to develop various addictions to keep up with the gang, but he just wasnt interested.

I BF all three cause I just cant see why anyone would want to bottle feed. I can understand if theres a pain thing, but it was never my deal to be preparing and sterilising - I liked to go out with a nappy stuffed in the back of my handbag, 2 kids, 2 boobs - I was gone.

Why what? Which point are you picking up on? Maybe if you took your fish oil...

There are many statements in this thread that I choose to ignore for now at least.

Now for a Sensitive Subject Alert.

Dummies & Cot death
I made a 180 degree turn on my thoughts towards dummies/pacifiers/do-dos when I was at medical school, where I reviewed the evidence that they have a protective effect against cot death.

Hopefully that didn't come from US research. They don't have a good record when it comes to SIDS.

SIDS is multi-factorial. Many robust (or as robust as possible) studies have been done, and continue.

I cannot remember the original data source, but as there are many SIDS deaths in the US (a larger population than the US so one would expect there would be more such deaths than in the UK), one would think that this would be an ideal source for research, no?

Okay