6 month old suckling

[ThatRareBlueZebra]

I have a 6mo son who had a dummy from 6 weeks old and had it taken away around 4mo. We substituted it with a monkey comforter to associate with sleep and is only given to him at nap and bedtime. This past week he has started suckling on the monkey and has become bad at naps again. I feel like we have taken a step back as now he is relying on monkey to suckle on to get to sleep, I have tried taking it away but he will hysterically cry for an hour and fight sleep and I don’t like the cry it out method, the longest I leave him to cry is 10 minutes. He used to do self soothing kicks and turning his head from side to side but doesn’t do this anymore. Is there anyway I can still let him have monkey but stop him from suckling. My son’s two bottom teeth have come through and he doesn’t seem to have any problems with them. Any help would be appreciated ❤️

Is there a reason that you don't want him sucking his monkey?

I don’t want him to suckle to sleep as then he will be dependent on the movement to fall asleep. It was the same when he had the dummy.

Personally I would just let him suckle on the monkey or give the dummy back. There’s a reason baby’s feed to sleep/ suck their thumbs/enjoy dummy’s, its a normal biological urge to suck to sleep and soothe. I think without being able to suck to sleep you risk having to support sleep in other more difficult ways eg. Rock to sleep etc.

It's much better that he sucks a dummy or his monkey. These are things you can take away later. He's obviously got a strong urge to suck and if he moves to sucking his thumb it will a much harder habit to break as you won't be able to remove his thumb