Should I nightwean 6 month old properly?

[abigailj]

Seeking the collective wisdom of people who've been in a similar situation. Have just had to sleep train my 6 month old who was addicted to his dummy and waking up 10+ times per night to have it replugged. Successful insofar as he now sleeps till around 4amish before waking for a feed (and til 6 and 5.30 once each). Was breastfeeding with one bottle before bed, but am now upping bottles and weaning of breast because of other reasons.

Problem is he will not settle well after his am feed and I have a 2.8 year old and a very cranky DH to keep happy (ie not wake up). Am not keen to reinstate dummy habit and risk undoing sleep training or create new habits with resettling.

What to do? Should I nightwean properly? Plan would be to use whatever techniques needed for s few days to get him through to 6ish without a feed, then use cc (I know, I hate it too, but nothing else works, have tried it all also with ds1) to sleep train.

Anyone with similar experience please let my know what your experience was! Ds2 is very prone to habits and would love nothing more than to sleep in my arms with a dummy in all night which of course is not sustainable.

[girliefriend]

Hi I had this with my dd and at around 6/7 months I decided that 7am was the goal!! So treated any waking before then as if it were the middle of the night, ie would allow some crying, then check she was o.kay, offer water, change nappy if it was sodden and then leave her to settle herself.

It took a few weeks but she then stopped waking at 5am and to this day (7yrs on!!) wakes at about 7.30am.

[abigailj]

Oh Thankyou girlfriend, for responding. I should say heis on three meals and a huge eater for his age. I think he gets plenty of calories during the day.will try offering water, as havent done that before. I just dont want to undo sleep training and put him through it again later.

[CarlyRose80]

Can I ask how you got him off the dummy? Going through exact same thing with my LO. Waking for it every hour!

[abigailj]

Hi carlyrose, sorry to hear you're struggling with the dummy. It s a common problem I think. I struggled particularly in the early hours during light sleep when he would wake very very frequently and I would doze only on and off from 3-6 ish. I decided to use pick up put down without the dummy, so that he figured out that he could go to sleep at bedtime without it ( ie had some self-settling skills). This took ages, but I felt it was the gentler option. It didn't fix the problem, though, he stil, woke and yelled between sleep cycles. So at about 6 months I used controlled crying. Since he could self settle It wasn't too bad, but you have to be prepared to stick it out, otherwise i wouldn't do it. Hope that helps. I wish gentler options worked, but they didn't.

[CarlyRose80]

Thanks for the advice. I'm considering my options lol. I tried without the dummy before and he settled eventually after lots of screamingly but when I was out and hubby was left in charge he caved in and have him the dummy un doing all my hard work. I've not tried since and some nights have been better then others. It's good to get advice before I aren't this again and at the moment I don't feel I have the complete support of my partner so it won't work but in my head I'm planning it. X

[CarlyRose80]

Apologies for typo errors. Hope you can make sense of message.

[abigailj]

Understand where you're at. Hugs. Don't beat yourselves up if you cave in every now ad then. I did too. Be as strong as you can but giving back the dummy sometimes wont necessarily mean the habit is back in full force I found. Just try to use it as little as possible. Also, don't replace ummy with rocking or patting etc. aim is that baby settles in cot when awake (starting from almost asleep, moving to very drowsy, then just drowsy iyswim)

[abigailj]

And don't be afraid of a bit of crying, protesting and fussing. It will happen.

[CarlyRose80]

It's really only during the night as when he goes down he is awake and never has dummy it's only when he wakes later he wants it. Again when he has his feed at night he wil go straight back down no fuss no dummy but when he wakes and an hour or so later he wants it. Last night was better as he slept 8-10, woke for dummy straight back to sleep. Slept till nearly 2, had feed, then woke at 5. From there was a night mare but that's the first night in 5 weeks he's done more then 2 hours without waking. Praying for the same tonight.

[CarlyRose80]

I can cope with the fussing but unfortunate OH can't and that's where we have problems. I'm just hoping this will pass as its to much of a strain on family life if I try to change the situation to much.

[abigailj]

I had v similar waking pattern and similar problems with DH, but he is looking after our 2 year old and just leaves the baby to me mostly. Problem is crying overnight that wakes the household, or might do.