Need your help before I go completely mad!

[Fisha]

My DD is 6 months and has until recently been a good sleeper. About a month ago she literally over night ditched her thumb for no reason we can see other than it may not be so comfortable now she's teething. She was sleeping 7pm-4am feeding and then back down til 7am. I think the introduction of solids (just baby rice) gave her (according to the doctor) a little bit of colic , which then resulted in her waking up several times a night with wind, that plus her inability to find her thumb meant we gave her a dummy to help soothe her tummy. Well now her tummy is fine but she can't put herself to sleep without something to suck on. Last night she was up for an hour at 1am screaming while I vainly tried to put her back to sleep without a dummy. I'm trying to leave her to cry but to be honest she just seems to wind herself up further. She's always been a sucky baby having had very bad colic as an infant and her thumb was a godsend. Does anybody have any ideas about how I can solve this -or help her find her thumb again.
thxs

[prefernot]

Fisha, our dd was an embarrassingly enthusiastic thumb-sucker until she was 7 months old when, like yours, she dropped it overnight. We were in complete shock and had to find all sorts of ways to help her learn how to get back to sleep again on her own. She hated dummies and just spat them out. It wasn't so bad at night for us as I breast fed her and she'd often fall asleep when I did that which I was fine with and she rarely woke in the night anyway. Naps were the nightmare and we ended up rocking her in the pram for ages trying to soothe her to sleep. What we found helped best was her first real favourite toy. It was a small towelling dog who had an incredibly long, soft nose and she started sucking on that almost as though it was a thumb. As she got less sucky she then used to twiddle his tail between her fingers and eventually then moved onto other toys. She's 2 now and goes to sleep alone fine so long as she's got her 'wolfy' tucked under her arm.

[aloha]

Why don't you want her to have a dummy, if you were happy with the thumbsucking? If it gets you all some peaceful sleep, that would definitely be my favoured option.

[marthamoo]

Me too aloha - she's only 6 months, if a dummy keeps her happy and gets you some sleep then give her a dummy. Dummies are a lot easier to ditch in future than a thumb (I speak as someone who sucked her thumb 'til she was 11).

[Fisha]

Thanks guys, Its not so much that I mind the dummies its the fact that I have to get up in the middle of the night and soothe her back to sleep rather than her doing it on her own with her thumb. Will keep going with dummies and encourage favourite toys as I think she needs to suck right now for whatever reason - hopefully night waking will ease up and some sanity will return!