Quick question: when are babies able to find dummies in the night?

[Maria2007]

I've become slightly obsessed with our dummy situation & have posted other threads about it in the past. Our DS is 8 months & is waking more & more in the night, 'asking' for his dummy to be replugged, & won't go back to sleep until that's done. This happens on average 5-6 times each night (no exceptions) & sometimes up to 9 times. We've been using a dummy-holder (on a very short ribbon) for a while now: hasn't helped. So DP & I are ready to do some sort of sleep training involving ditching the dummy; I know it'll be very tough & I really didn't want to do this, but we're at the end of our tether with lack of sleep.

My question is: from your experience, when (on average) do babies manage to find their own dummies in the night? DS has never been able to do this, despite the dummy holder. He's crawling, standing, completely mobile, puts things in his mouth fine during the day. But not the dummy, not in the night. Is there any chance this may happen soon & we'll do the sleep training for nothing? Or am I deluding myself?

What do you think? As I said, he's 8 & a half months.

Hi bigmumma.
Couple more tipa to help this bit -
You have to keep him awake while he's having his last feed before bedtime. AFter that, read him a short book (same each night til it's resolved). Put him in bed awake.
Are you breastfeeding or bottlefeeding?
If you're bottle feeding, try this:
After he's gone down after last feed -
If he wakes before 10pm just pat and sh etc
If wakes after 10pm get him out of the cot and offer
Night 1-2 - 4 scoops for 6 oz of water
Night 3-4 - 3 scoops for 6oz
Night 5-6 - 1.5 scoopa for 6oz
Night 7 nothing
make sure he goes back in to bed awake.

We didn't need to go past night 4 as she started sleeping through. There wasn't much less crying than going cold turkey. She cried 2 hours in the middle of night one but it got better very quickly.
Do you want me to email you?
let me know

Bigmummabear, yes, its very inspiring, and yes we're about to embark on more or less the same thing. So I love reading how it's going (keep us updated). At the moment we can't start sleep training for 3 reasons- first, we're still on holiday (returning tomorrow). Second, he just popped his first tooth so has been cranky understandbly. Third, he has a cold. But once these issues are resolved it's sleep training immediately for us, to be honest, I can't WAIT, I'm so so tired, and like you bigmummabear I've become obsessed with the dummy situation, I really want it over & done with.
As I said, please do keep us updated, it really helps to read what's been going on.

Hang in there Maria - won't be long!
For info - there's a short video on video jug of Andrea Grace giving some tips about how to help babies over 6 months sleep through the night. It's pretty straightforward stuff but I found it useful.
Here's the link:
www.videojug.com/film/contented-baby-sleep-6-months-and-over

Good luck!

Shylily - your story is an inspiration to me.
Tonight for the first time my son aged 5 and a half months has gone to sleep without a dummy. Having decided to ditch the dummy yesterday I used pu/pd to send him to sleep, he cried for 5 mins and the whinged for a further 15 mins. I know its the first time and could be beginners luck but I am now hopeful that I can stick to it.

Good luck with your sleep training Maria2007. It is very useful to read about others going through the same thing.

I hope in the not to distant future we all have more settled babies with less sleep deprived mums.

Hello! I actually thought I'd posted yesterday but obviously managed not to press the right button...

Anyway:

He slept through!

Wahey!!!

OK, so he woke up at 5am, but still, he went down at 6.30pm so peacefully, just waggled his legs in the air a few times, I tucked him back in and... zonk.

I'm really hoping this isn't a fluke and a sign of things to come. Best of luck to everyone - I'm so glad I stuck at it that horrible first night. Because that's really all it took! Thank you thank you shylily.

tape it to his mouth hand.

but seriously, not a clue.

Nice work Bigmummabear and littleDSbear!
DD's woken a few times at 5am since the sleep training started. Apparently the most fragile sleep is after 4am.
Any waking before 6am I treat as a night waking.
The first time it happened I tried settling her and she got a bit wound up but I didn't get her out of bed until 6am. It only took one morning like that.
The past 2 mornings I've just gone in, patted and said 'sleepy time' and she's gone back to sleep until 7.30am! Yay!
Keep going.
DD went bonkers on night 4 of the training after sleeping through 2 nights and then got back in to it and hasn't woken in the night since (we're up to day 12).
Thanks for the updates - good to see it's going so well.

I had glow in the dark ones, they helped

Yeah they do glow in the dark ones in boots, avent I think ;-)

Shylily, it's amazing, 12 nights of such good sleep!! Yes, it really is inspiring (as are the other stories on this thread).

We're now back from holiday, DS is recovering from his cold (cough & blocked nose) & once that's done, it's cold turkey time for us. Yikes!! I'm quite anxious about it, but reading all your stories has reaaaaaaaaally helped.

Maria - just to let you know, the little monkey woke at 4am and was awake on and off (but not screaming as she used to) until 5.30am at which point she went back to sleep until 8am and I got up for work! Aaaah!
However, it's worth it and if there's a bad day, just remember - don't give in!

Good luck maria!! I hope it all goes works out for you. We have now gone 48 hours without the dummy and my lo has had 2 x 1 hour long naps today, this hasn't happened since christmas and he went to sleep tonight with just a little whinging while lying in his crib.

I did miss the dummy briefly today however while out in the car, the car really upsets him for some reason and he screamed the whole 20 minute journey into town, I am sure he will get used to travelling without it.

Hi girls again.

I'm writing this (and I hope some of you are still following the thread) to offer encouragement to anyone who's thinking about ditching the dummy. Last night we finally decided to bite the bullet & go cold turkey. Let me tell you- even after this one night, I really really think it's the best thing we've done.

We did sh-sh-sh-pat at the beginning. He didn't realize, for about 10 minutes, that it was bedtime (just because the dummy wasn't there!) so he played in his cot happily. Then he cried quite a bit- because he was tired- (about 10 minutes, with me sh-sh-patting him) & then I went out of the room to have a glass of water, his crying immediately became less, & within 5 minutes he had slept!!!

He did wake 3-4 times in the night, but 2 of those he simply self-settled with a minimum amount of whingeing, within 5 minutes. At 4 am he woke & cried a bit more & we offered milk & calmed him down. After the milk, again he self-settled very quickly.

Tonight is the 2nd night of the sleep training, so it might actually get worse (sometimes it does on the second night) but I really feel very encouraged & I'm sure in a few nights time we will have cracked it.

The other thing to do- which worked well for us yesterday- is naps in the buggy without the dummy during the days of the sleep training, so that enough sleep is had & the baby is not overtired.

Anyway. Will keep you posted!