Rough night is now normal

[Muppet7410]

Last night my baby boy woke at 150, 235, 315, 455, 530. In bed with me at 6. Woke for the day at 730.

What's causing him to wake? He settles himself to sleep at night but at each wake up needs me to put his dummy in.

I'm so tired as I only managed to get back to sleep for a bit between the 315 and 455 wake up.

He used to sleep much better than this. It's so frustrating!!!!

[Inneedofaholiday2017]

The dummy is your prob x

[NoNeedToArgue]

How old is your baby? I agree the dummy could be the problem, but we solved it by getting a sleepytot toy. It's a flattish teddy which holds 4 dummies in its paws and makes it easy for baby to put their own dummy in. My DD is 8 months now and has just got the hang of it. It has absolutely revolutionised our nights, i can't recommend it enough. Only problem is babies have to be at least 7 months to be able to use it! I feel your pain, OP. It will pass!

[Muppet7410]

He is 6.5 months. I tried to ditch the dummy on Thursday but couldn't bear to hear him so upset.

[FATEdestiny]

He's not likely to have the manual dexterity skills to be able to physically coordinate his movements to put own dummy in until around 7-10 months.

Exactly the same will be true of any other self-soothing mechanism. So I would definitely not ditch the dummy, you'll just create extra problems.

The dummy isn't the problem anyway. Light sleeping is the problem. A deep sleeper can use whatever means to get to sleep and is more likely to stay asleep through sleep cycles anyway, so doesn't need resetting.

Light sleeping is usually caused by

• not enough calories over 24 hours
  
• not enough sleep over 24 hours
  

It's also caused by getting to sleep position. In that a baby who goes to sleep in arms then wakes in cot will be freaked out and wake fully. But that's not relevant to your situation I don't think.

I would say primarily you just need to readjust your expectations. Your 6 month old will need you to put his dummy in. End of story. So just accept that. I'd keep the cot next to my bed until the skill of reinsertibg own dummy is mastered.

Aside from that, try to maintain all the milk feeds you had before weaning, in addition to early weaning foods (which tend to be low calorie). And ensure baby has long and frequent daytime naps to avoid over tiredness.

[Jellylorum]

Try stopping dummy - worked for us!

[Jellylorum]

We just cuddled instead for a couple of nights and didn't take long for things to improve