Dummies - AIBU to wean 11 month old off for better sleep?

[NoSleepMum7]

First time mum here. Our son just turned 11 months old. Bit of a back story to explain how I got to this issue:

Son slept well overnight from around 3-6 months, has had a dummy since birth basically. At about 6 months old, his first tooth started coming in and since then his sleep has been awful overnight. I’ve found sleep schedules and tried to stick to them with the appropriate wake windows for each month, kind of guided by our son’s morning rising time each day but the overall gist is the same amount of time between naps each day for the age.

Anyhow, recently his sleep has been worse, to the point I’ve debated a sleep consultant just to see if it’s something we are doing wrong but almost can’t seem to justify that expense as we moved house a few months ago and have been trying to do the bedrooms up and been paying for new windows, plastering, etc.

Ive seen lots online about ditching the dummy as they can become dependent on it to sleep, and that could be causing the problem, so I decided I’d give it a go, as my husband has this coming week off work so it won’t affect his work. I decided tonight I’d try to get rid of the dummy and I’ve seen loads of people say just get rid of it instead of trying to dance around removing it, he’s had it less during the day for a while and mainly uses it for sleep now.

We did our usual bedtime routine (bath, bottle, bed) and while he was whinging I just decided I’d remove the dummy and go from there. He cried and whinged while I was holding him and rocking him around but several times he settled, then woke himself up minutes later in my arms. I tried putting him down in his cot while he was somewhat calm but awake, so he wasn’t screaming but that immediately turned into him screaming. I tried soothing him from outside the cot, but he just kept getting up and crying so when he worked himself up too much I tried rocking him around but he did the same: cry, scream, settle, wake up. I went back and forth several times between cot and rocking him. My husband doesn’t really agree with the no dummy thing yet(I assume because it’s easier to get him to sleep that way now he’s reliant on it, or because it stops him whinging, but I desperately don’t want him to have it forever especially if it could be the cause of our crappy sleep?) so he just sat on our bed, looking like he wanted to off himself.

I told husband to go downstairs because he doesn’t agree with it and I want to try it because I’m fucking shattered from barely any sleep. (We currently work on the basis of husband sleeps downstairs to get some decent sleep from midnight-6am, I sort our son out overnight so if he can’t settle in bed he comes into our bed, then husband comes to get him at 6am so I can sleep properly until around 9/10am.) So he said “I just think it’s fucking cruel” and left the room. Our son is now currently asleep on me, settled minutes after he left the room and has been asleep since. I’m not using the cry it out method, I am here and helping our son through the transition to no dummy, But is it cruel??
AIBU to try to remove the dummy now for the small possibility of better sleep?? Please help 😢

Oh it feels awful when you do it, but it will need to be done at some point. I was going to suggest placing lots of dummies in the cot so there is always one to hand when dc wakes up. We did this when we didnt yet have the energy to go cold turkey!
But when we did go for it, we did essentially what you're doing. I dont think I lifted them out of the cot though, just lots of soothing from the sides. It feels horrible for 2-3 days and then they seem to get it - but they will always have one last really bad night, just when you think theyve got it, and it will be like night 1 again, but if you stay consistent they will get it. And better sleep all round will be the result! Its unfair of dh to use such harsh words when he isnt as affected by the lack of sleep

Best of luck!

I went cold turkey with mine (at about 8 months) and it really was worth it; we went from hourly wake ups to going straight through. It's hard, but so worth it!

Yes you can’t do cry it out and remove the dummy.

Give him the benefit of the doubt and maybe he just feels bad for your lo. Talk to him. You both need to be in agreement. My dh use to sneak dummy’s to mine when I was at work. Easy life or he genuinely felt bad for them. Either way we sat down and chatted. Something I hadn’t done before and got him onboard.

We’ve spoken before about removing the dummy eventually but I think he just thinks it will be later down the line every time it’s mentioned. I think because it’s a lot of hard work that he would rather our son just kept the dummy now and deal with it when we can be bothered to.

But that’s what I mean - I don’t agree with cry it out, so I didn’t see what was cruel, I was there with him, although he was crying I was still there comforting him through it. I just felt he was being unreasonable to say that when I was trying and he knows I’d never let our son cry on his own, I hate the thought of it. I just want our son to sleep better for his own sake too, because he’s awake so often during the night, and if a few nights of crying to get over his dummy will help then I’d rather do that to help him in the long run 😢

I'd do the shift more gradually.

First ditch the dummy, but if it means you have to hold or rock sleep or lie on your bed with him, do that. You will probably need to do a couple of weeks of this so he realises he can fall asleep without the dummy.

Then shift from holding to sleep to baby in cot with hand on tummy or patting to soothe. Then gradually reduce the patting etc move to where you can be sat by the cot, before attempting to put down awake with nothing.

While you're holding him, introduce comfort items. Tuck a muslin under your top all day so it smells like you and give it him while you are holding him so he associates it with you. Satin edged ones were really popular with my kids.

Or introduce an age appropriate small blanket or soft toy.

Things like a red night light, or soft lullaby music are also helpful.

Unfortunately it isn't a nice process teaching your little one to soothe without a dummy. It's horrible. But I can promise you that the longer you leave it the more like hell it will be. With my first I got rid of bottles and dummy around one years old. Had about three nights each time of lots of comfort needed but sleep improved instantly and I was relieved. Like you I was doing the nights so dad didn't want to hear the crying at bedtime, but then it didn't affect his sleep so he was getting an easy life.

With my daughter due to several reasons I've only just got rid of he bedtime bottle. She is two. The experience was a lot worse as her memory is better, she knows where they were kept, she's talking, definitely more determined haha! And she never had a dummy, didn't like them. Night 4 and I so badly want to give up and just give her a bottle, but I after reading your post I've been reflecting and every night there has been some small wins, so night 4 went ahead and she fell asleep without a bottle. Yay! It does get better.

I don't see anything wrong with trying it, being there for comfort. But I do think it is easier when both parents are on the same page. But then it does sound like this decision affects you far more (getting more sleep potentially) than a week of listening discomfort at the beginning of the evening for your husband.

In my experience, removing the dummy at this stage doesn’t improve sleep. We had exactly the same circumstances, and it didn’t help.

we gave it back. He painlessly ditched it himself at 16 months. Just took it out one day and never wanted it back, no tears or drama. Didn’t improve his sleep, though. It wasn’t always awful, but it wasn’t better because of the lack of dummy. If anything, dummy sleep was better!

Sleep is developmental.

There is quite a bit of evidence from Speech and Language Therapists, dentists etc that babies should be weaned from the dummy by 12 months to prevent problems with mouth and jaw shape issues, so now is actually a perfect time to do it.

I think any kind of sleep training/teaching is hard. My husband found it a lot harder than me because he just wanted to take the easier route and rock to sleep but couldn't see how I was exhausted from never having any evening without the baby as I would just spend hours rocking them. Whenever he tried they screamed for me so he always ended up handing over. After the first couple of weeks when they worked out how to get to sleep it was sooo much better. I felt like i had some life back and could cope with the odd wake up as I had some down time beforehand. But you do need to be on the same page as your husband so maybe get his perspective on how he thinks it should happen.