Weaning a 6 month old from dummy?

[SeymoreButts]

DS has just turned 6 months, he's my third DC but nothing like the others so I'm feeling very clueless and in need of some advice.

A bit of background first...

DS literally spent the first 4 months of his life SCREAMING. It got so bad I couldn't leave the house because nothing would stop it. I used to put him in the sling for school runs (he still cried) and stay at home at all other times. I tried the dummy a few times without success but he finally took it at 4 months. My life changed over night. I took the older DCs to the park and went to the supermarket without a screaming baby or having a breakdown. He would settle for daytime naps much quicker too.

He's never been a great sleeper, he's done three 5 hour stretches at night since birth, but for the last month he's been waking every 1-2 hours and I've fed him or popped the dummy in. I'm really tired and struggling with 3 DCs and a DH working long hours and family all in the UK (I'm in Australia). I saw the HV yesterday and she thinks I need to break the sucking to sleep association to improve the nights. I started with daytime naps and it's been a disaster, he's basically refused to sleep and there has been a lot of screaming. I've been rocking, patting, cuddling, feeding but he's having none of it. Is this worth persisting with? Will I go back to house arrest?

Can you co sleep? Less disturbing for you to put dummy back in?

What about breaking the whole process down to tiny winnable steps? Maybe for a few days / week no dummy unless nap and sleep time, then attack one nap at a time, removing dummy once asleep, then teaching to self soothe to get to sleep amd then the theory is this skill will transfer to night time?

This is only based on what I would do not any actual theory. I have twins and they didn't particularly love the dummy but needed it to sleep but I found it disturbed them as much as soothed so o took it away at 13 weeks it took about 2 days to get them used to it, one sleeps with the same lullaby teddy and one with a muslin drapped over her arm. It was definitely worth it.

Try to watch dc to catch them at the right time for sleep, ie sleepy and tired but not over tired and don't do too much to help them sleep without it or you're just transferring the problem.

During the day you'll need to do lots of distraction I would have thought.

My ds started sleeping through when we got rid of the dummy and they now can put themselves to sleep in 5/10 minutes which frees me up to spend time with ds1.

Sorry for mixed up reply - on phone so can't move paragraphs into a more logical order.

Thanks go, breaking it up into steps rather than cold turkey is a good idea. We used to co sleep but I find it harder now he's so big and wriggly! Did your twins take to their comforters when you took the dummy away? I've been giving DS a comforter for a while now but he's not fussed by it.

DS went through a phase of crying whenever his dummy fell out.
Ths really helped www.sleepytot.com/ I know it doesn't deal with the root cause but it did save my sanity as he could find it straight away and pop it back in himself.
For what it's worth I've seen the fallout from friends who have started co sleeping at this point. It becomes another habit to break later on.

It took us 2 weeks for DS to come to terms with me going cold turkey with the dummy. We took it away when he was 5 months. Definitely worth persevering with! Harder in the first instance but he sleeps much better without it overall. I gave a comforter for a couple of weeks before hand, and now he snuggles his face into that instead - only really started doing that when I took dummy away though.

I have heard that the sleepytot type toys, although helpful, still cause the sleep to be more broken than it should be, as they require the baby to wake up enough to locate the toy, replace dummy etc.

Good luck

I tried a few different things and noticed what worked. Think you do need something else for them to occupy them a bit as they're going to sleep.

Have you looked into wether your LO may be suffering with reflux. Mine used to cry alot and enjoyed sucking for comfort due to him having silent reflux. Turned out he was dairy intolerant which caused reflux. May be worth a look online

Thanks for all the replies, we're making progress! So far we have managed without the dummy at night and have had 2 good nights with 4 hour stretches of sleep. Last night wasn't so good though. He seems to need the dummy more for daytime naps.

emz my first child had cows milk allergy and reflux, but she was very vomitty. DS rarely vomits and is big so the GP said he can't have it. I switched to a dairy free diet when he was 4 weeks old but it didn't seem to help the screaming.

seymore. Your GP is wrong. Reflux can be silent, with no vomiting and is incredibly painful as the acid just sloshes around and silent reflux babies can be very big as they feed to sooth the pain. Silent reflux babies love their dummies as the saliva is soothing. I'd go back to the doctor or in fact another doctor and get this looked at tbh. Good luck. Sounds like you're doing a great job in really trying circumstances.

Progress!