Weaning off dummies

[pinkcactus]

My (almost) 6mo ds loves his dummy but it's got to the stage where last night we were up 6 times putting it back in for him when he woke up and started to cry.
We'd love to wean him off it (with as little trauma to both him and us as possible) as it's getting ridiculous ... any suggestions?
I'm also aware that it's close to teething time ... Could it be that his gums are sore and he's using the dummy as a way of relieving the discomfort? Is this the right or wrong time to try weaning off the dummy?
Thanks a lot

I have no idea what the right time to wean off of dummies is but if your ds is starting to teeth then sucking on a dummy can make things worse as the sucking action draws more blood to the gums (or so I was told). My ds is now 19 months and still has his dummy for sleeping, he used to wake up loads in the night because he lost it but we ended up dotting a few around the cot so he could find one.

I really don't know how to stop ds needing a dummy to sleep now though, it isn't affecting his speech but I worry about his teeth (I had braces as a child from thumb sucking) so wil watch this thread with interest.