Waking up in the night...! Urghh!

[Clio197]

DS used to be very good sleeping for long periods before waking for food. No, he goes to bed at 7pm, will wake about 10, 2, 4 then 6am finnally for food!!

Every time he wakes I pop his dummy in and he straight off to sleep without even a whimper... Until morning.

Do I need to ditch the dummy altogether? Qhat do I do when he wakes in the night if I dont have a dummy to pop in?

He gets put down in his cot every night awake, and fusses and moans a bit anything from no noise at all, to 20mins of crying, where im in and out puting his dummy back in and shhh shhhing him. Been doing this for about 6 weeks - I thought he'd of got the picture by now and be sleeping when I put him down...

Thank you for any replies!!

how old is he?

hes 4 months and one week.

Only had the dummy as he has/had GORD hes now hevily medicated for it, and on prescription milk, so I dont think he should need to use it to keep the acid down really any more. Hes alot better.

Had me up more times than I can rmbr lastnight, mabey 5 times... Urgh!!!!!

i think you are expecting way too much - a 4 month old doesn't have the skills to self soothe/self settle to sleep consistently

most need help - co-sleeping, feeding, swaddling etc and this is quite usual

GORD takes a while to settle down and is well known for causing sleep issues

at 16 weeks a dummy is a comfort for him and i wouldn't take it away yet

Ahhh, they are unable to self soothe??? OK thats a big help, so i wont use any sleep training techniques as they will just distress him.

I dont get it though, he never used to wake.. he goes 7 til 6 with no milk, he just wants dummy...

could be worse eh, he could be up for hours at night.

just worked it out and hes 19 weeks old today! Dont think that would make much difference tho.

No sleep training yet

I'm paranoid about our baby (5 and 1/2 mths) getting addicted to his dummy so I do try and take it out just before he drops off into deep sleep, or at least just after, as have heard horror stories of babies being totally addicted and their parents having to get up all night to put dummy back in. It has worked OK for us so far - he doesn't need his dummy to get back to sleep in middle of night when he's woken up for a feed (currently twice a night - once at about midnight and once again about 3 or 4am).

I think it is not too early to start trying to introduce some other sleep associations as well - maybe a music box or something - with the hope that he doesn't become completely dependent on dummy? I am v inexperienced first time mother tho so feel free to ignore me!

Hi ya, I had the same problem as you so I'd srtongly suggest you go with Starkadder's suggestion and take the dummy out once your lo has falled asleep. I ended up getting a comforter from sleepytot.com that I can put the dummies on and that's great for us. At four months, I don't think your lo would be able to work it out but I reckon that by 5 months it would work - and would mean you don't have to keep replacing the dummy since it makes it easy to find the dummy.

I agree with everyone else, letting them cry it out when they're so young is just painful for everyone. Poor you though, I'm only four months past where you are now!

Thank you for replies, I am going to have to try something!

People keep telling me of this 4month fuss!? I dont know what it is, but mabey this is making things worse!

I was thinking about one of those projector things, but I dont want to have to get up in the night to turn the damn thing on!! ha ha... id be back where I am now!

At 5.5 months hes still waking twice for food in the night - what a pigglet..!!

What a load of rubbish that they can't self settle! My dd was 4mths yesterday. 2 weeks ago, we took away her dummy as it was really disturbing her sleep. She was waking every 30 mins between 7pm and dreamfeed at 11pm and then every 2 hrs looking for it.

I was terrified about getting rid of the dummy as I did not know what we would do without it but everything I had read led me to believe that she would sleep better.

I also, did not want to leave her to cry for very long.

My plan was to sit with her, patting her etc for 20 mins, leave her for 5mins, sit with her for 10 mins, leave her for 5mins until she fell asleep.

She never cried for more than 25 mins, most of which I was sitting with her. I knew that she wasnt hungry or ill but that she just wanted to sleep.
It was horrible as I hate to hear her cry.
It took 3 days. She never cried all that much.
Within 4 days of giving up the dummy, she started sleeping through the night.
She is absolutely fine. She has forgotten all about the dummy.
She can self settle herself. She sucks her fingers.
She is sleeping really well for most of her naps.
She is as happy and loving as ever.

I never thought I would get rid of it and I am glad we did.

He IS a bit of a piglet but waiting till he is 6 months or more and a bit established on solids before I start refusing..!