Dummy withdrawn now in toddler HELL!!!

[Chuf]

We withdrew my 3 year old son's dummy recently, he just used to use it at night. It went OK at first, but then he started getting up earlier and earlier and more in the night. Coming up to bedtime he is so tired he is all over the place screaming at us etc. During the day can be pretty bad too. Before removing the dummy he has been having more tantrums and now with the lack of sleep on top his mood has been so irritable. He won't nap in the day anymore, and is resisting bedtime more and more. I have contemplated giving him the dummy back and trying again in a few months, but my partner thinks I am crazy, I feel awful putting my son through this twice, and the dentist says his teeth are starting to be pushed out. Any advice would be great. Is this a phase and should we push on? It's not helped by the fact that it's not that long since he dropped his nap and this new sense of determination he has. He is fighting us all the time and we are giving in as we feel it's mostly tiredness related and being firm doesn't seem to help. Bit of a mess! Thanks in advance xx

[HamSandWitches]

Bribery, let him choose a nice toy to sleep with and tell him it's instead of the dummy. My 3 were dummy mad, had to go cold turkey with bribery. One got a cheap toy or teddy every day for a week, she would take the bears she bought to bed with her.

[SWtobe]

Do you drive would he maybe take a nap if you bring him out in the car. Make him nice and comfortable maybe some warm milk before the drive

[Chuf]

He has a comforter toy but he doesn't seem to be using it. We could go to make a bear or something though and see if that would help. Thanks xx

[Chuf]

I don't drive unfortunately, but I did take him out in the buggy and he fell asleep for only half an hour and was worse after. I did take him out though, I could bring the buggy home and see if he sleeps longer. Cheers x

[SWtobe]

Sometimes when my child wouldn’t nap I would put her in the pram all cosy after some nice food and rocked the pram with my foot till she fell asleep in a dark room that always seemed to work.

[moggle]

No advice, only sympathy. We're preparing to get rid of DDs dummy, she's about to turn three, and this is what I'm dreading happening. I keep reading "we took it away and she fell straight to sleep and never mentioned it again!" And I just KNOW that is not going to happen here.
However... now it's done i wouldn't give it back. Good luck...

[Whistle73]

Lots of three year-olds don't nap in the day - my DD2 gave up her daytime nap aged 2 - so that could be just coincidence, that it has happened at the same time as the dummy withdrawal.

I took her dummy off her aged 3 as well on the advice of the dentist. I had so much angst about taking it away from her and sat downstairs in tears of guilt about it but it only took two nights for her to then go to sleep without crying for it!

She did regress to having a bottle of milk at bedtime for a while. Not ideal I know but it was a much easier habit to break than a dummy.

Please don't give the dummy back - you are only prolonging the agony you are in now and confusing him. Persevere and accept the day time sleep has now gone and maybe try the bedtime routine a little earlier to compensate.

Is he waking early because he is cold? or maybe the heating coming on is waking him up?

[BellyBean]

DD didn't have a dummy at that age and still went through a bedtime battle phase. Might be coincidence

[LapinR0se]

At 3 he should be ok without a nap but needs to go to bed early to make sure he gets enough sleep. He sounds desperately overtired.
I would buy something special as a treat for being such a big boy and lights out by 7pm every night for a week to see how you go.
Other thing to consider is whether he’s not sick or coming down with something

[Chuf]

Ta, I think we just have to plough through. Good luck to you too xx

[oldbirdy]

We always lost the dummy on holiday. I "forgot" to take any with us. They were all ok about it after a difficult first night where I apologised and asked them to try hard to be brave.
Maybe you could do that over Christmas if you are travelling?

[Chuf]

Thanks whistle73 I think it is cold when he wakes up early. We do need to get stricter at a 7pm bedtime for the time being as you said LapinR0se, this whole thing was made worse by the fact that he got a nasty virus the week after we gave up the dummy. That's when the sleep went haywire. My friends son is going through a similar bad sleep patch as you said belly bean. We are being v gentle with our son and pretty much giving into his every whim cos we feel most of this is tiredness related. But I am worried we are making it worse. Do you think we should be a bit more firm/boundaried with him? When we tried that the first day things just got so much worse! X

[Believeitornot]

If he’s cold then give him an extra blanket when you go to bed.

We had to give dd a lot more physical comfort to settle her for sleep once her dummy was gone (she was nearly 4). It took her a long time to stop talking about it but she def needed more cuddles etc from us.

[xabiix]

Hi I'm also in this toddler hell since removing the dummy. He's 2.3, we put it on the xmas tree for the baby elves but now he screams to sleep and is waking at 5. How's your little one now? X

[Chuf]

Hi xabiix, just seen your message, sorry to here you are going though a rough time too, does he scream whilst you are in the room putting him to sleep? Our son was waking at 5 too but that has improved a bit which is good. However overall things have got worse since I posted and now he just comes into bed with us usually about 1-2 (sometimes earlier last night 10.30), usually my partner has to go elsewhere as its not comfortable enough for three. But this is just making him less able to settle himself and more dependent on us. Someone today said we should go back to the dummy that its his comfort, its been so disruptive for us, and his teeth will be fine. The thing is if we give him back the dummy he may still come in! What a mess. We are trying gradual withdrawal at bedtime which is the only thing that is working and hopefully we will be out the door soon. But middle of the night is different -he gets really scared and runs in, and he wont settle back in his own bed. He went through a nightmare phase around age twoish and it seems to have comeback after this dummy coming out. I have chronic pain and am on meds that make you woozy at night so this is all really hard. But giving up the dummy was hard for him -I feel dummy has been shifted to us though x

[Toddlerwith1ontheway]

Thanks for the reply chuf! I'm sorry to read it hasn't gotten any better. How soon after taking the dummy did he start waking in the night? I'm pregnant with another due in March which is why I took the dummy now as wanted him to 'forget' by time the baby was here, he didn't have it in the day for about 6 weeks and that was a piece of cake but night time is another story!!
He is still crying at night to go to sleep but I've just had to let him cry it out tonight as my partner works away and I seriously needed to wash my hair haha. He cried for 15 minutes and went to sleep without his milk, when I say cry it's more just screaming mummy
He woke yesterday at 7 which was amazing and then today at 6.15 anything after 6 I find acceptable, but it's hard because they obviously don't know how to self soothe.
I personally wouldn't give him the dummy back, because you will only have to take it away again and like you say it may not even solve the problem (I've been debating the same in my head) then you would have given the dummy back and still going through the same!
I keep telling my self it doesn't last forever but I am finding it very stressful x

[Chuf]

Hey your doing well coping with the crying/screaming and tbh you are picking the right time to remove the dummy as I was told by someone (may have been a HV) that it only gets harder as they get older and more attached to it. Have u tried a controlled crying type of thing? I would try that with our son but he is out the door trying to locate us so we have decided to stick with the softly softly approach. This is v stressful, I have friends who co-sleep and I was quite happy not doing this as I need my sleep with my condition and my son sleeps so much better in his own bed. But now we co-sleep every night (already tonight as he has a fever). After taking the dummy out at first he did OK except for getting up at 5, then he started needing me to go to sleep, then the waking in the night and fear started (poor thing) as couldn't settle. How long has the early morning waking and screaming and bedtime been going on? Sounds like he has lots of determination x

[isthistoonosy]

Our almost three yr old def understands the groclock and that she is not to wake us before the sunshine is up so that could be worth a try.
Bedtime is generally ok but on screaming nights I just teln ours that there will be no story if she doesn't stop screaming and get into bed. Only had to skip the story once for her to understand I mean it.

[Toddlerwith1ontheway]

Hey chuf totally forgot to say I'd changed my username from xabix but assumed you knew it was me anyway.
Well when my lb was 9 months I did controlled crying so 2 mins crying then go in and resettle then 4 mins and so on this worked after about a week and he's been great up untill the dummy removal. Which is why ive just resorted to letting him shout out as I feel now he's older it makes him worse to keep going in. It's been 9 nights now without it and he had cried every night but the second night was 1.5 hours (with us in an out) and all It does is make me super stressed so it's better for everyone for me to leave him. I do have the positive of him still being in a cot at the moment though! (Bed is on order which I'm now bloody dreading)
He woke up at around 5.45 this morning but didn't call for me untill 6.15, he was just tossing and turning in the half hour, asleep for a few mins then moving then asleep again and so on as I was stalking on the monitor as I was already awake due to anxiety of him being up early anyway!
I'm glad you've said the earlier the better as I wrote a post on another site and everyone started telling me he's too young and to give it back! Not the advice you want to hear!!

I totally agree with the co sleeping I've never done it either but when you want sleep you just do anything don't you and I also can't sleep very well with him in my bed so must be worse for you. Was your lo still sleeping through at this point like 9 days in or was he already getting up in the night?

[Chuf]

Hi isthis we have tried a groclock and he does get it but he doesn't like being in his room alone even during the day. At night he has a night light and comfort toy and blanket but doesn't help really. We eventually gave up on the clock :-(
Hi toddler yes doing this in the cot definitely seems best as I hope this will improve for you soon -like someone said above maybe going out to buy a new comfort toy together may help? At about 9 days I think my son had started coming in to us. In fact he had started coming in to us occasionally before we removed the dummy but usually we could take him back to bed. Again I think we left this too late! It's early days for you, keep on and I reckon you will get there but maybe hide the new bed if you can for the mo :-) We will probably end up buying a super king Haha x

[Toddlerwith1ontheway]

What sort of nightlight do you have? I keep debating one but don't know if it would then keep him up! It's hard when they're so little. I've also been looking at the gro clocks but I've read they're really bright?
We did buy him a new teddy from heat factory the first day after his dummy he loves it in the day but throws him out of his cot on the night
I hope it gets better for you soon xx

[Chuf]

We have a light on the shelf that's quite soft and dims, We only got it when he went through a phase of nightmares around 2ish but he prefers it now. The gro clock light doesn't seem too bright if you want to combine the two. You can set that for going to sleep as well as waking up I think if that may help you. Fingers crossed they both get the message about sleep soon haha!

[Toddlerwith1ontheway]

How are you getting on chuf? Any better? X

[Oceanrae]

My daughter is 2 she happily put her dummy in the bin and I was in awe! She literally was stuck to that thing.. first it started with nursery and her not having it there but soon as she left she was literally so obsessed with it till she put it in the bin herself becuase her friends were “ big girls” and didn’t have one and she wanted to be a big girl ! Only now I’ve never seen her so angry and the tantrums are ridiculous I’m currently sitting through a 1 hour tantrum still going strong due to her not letting me wash her in the bath so I took her out the bath she kicked and hit me so I put her to bed with no tv tonight and told her that’s because you are carrying on for no reason this is not the way to get what you want! , I’m struggling I must say because I have a 1 year old boy too and he’s quite a handful she’s been so naughty after 5 weeks without a dummy 😭

[rlittle7]

Hi all, just after some advice really. My daughter is 28 months, and she's been so dependent on her dummy lately that yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and I snipped a hole in the top and said a little mouse bit it 🙈 she cried and cried but has taken 2 day naps and slept from 9pm until 6:30 this morning without it. I've left the dummy there so that she can see it and remember that she hasn't got one anymore. She is still getting really upset about it, and my mam thinks that she needs the comfort of a dummy more now than ever (not seeing loved ones during the pandemic) I'm really confused over what I should do, does she need the comfort of a dummy at the moment or should I persevere? Thanks in advance