7 month old sucks on my finger to fall asleep

[Miggs28]

My 7 month old DS needs to suck on mine or my DH's finger when he wakes in the night to settle back to sleep. He doesn't often wake at night but when he does this has become a necessity. I'm beginning to get worried now however because I think we have a tooth cutting through and realise this form of comforting can't continue. He will suck his own thumb and can resettle using this but sometimes this just won't do! does anyone else have any experience of this?

how did you break the habit? was it necessary when teeth appeared?

Dummy?

He did have a dummy that he would use for comfort but now refuses and just spits it out. Not ideal as I would happily give him one if he would take it!!

Miggs my DD often spits her dummy out a few times. I let her cry for a bit, literally like 15-30 seconds and offer it again. She takes it and is almost immediately soothed by it.

Sometimes we repeat this 5 mins later, but usually after the second go she's asleep.

Hth

I'm not sure if it's exactly the same, and it'll probably be no help what so ever, but when my little girl was 6mths old, she started sucking her thumb while holding my hair in the same hand so she could smell it while she fell asleep.

She still does it EVERY nap time and bed time (she's now 17 and a half mths)

I don't have the heart not to let her! But the only advice I can give you is persist with the dummy, or is there someone else who can put your l.o to bed/ sort him when he wakes for a few days/ a week so that he forgets about it if he's away from you for a while? Be prepared to be on hand though, change is a big thing! Lots of luck!

I know its not an easy solution - but you just have to stop doing it, he will learn to fall asleep on his own, but only if you stop the finger thing. Its boring and not fun but you have to just sit patting/ shhhing etc and not interfere with finger etc.

We dropped the dummy at this age and it was a few nights of crying while we sat with him stroking/ etc but not picking up - he fell asleep within 15 minutes the first few times - and then more or less stopped waking so often anyway.

I wouldnt introduce a dummy to replace it at this age - you will be up and down all night getting the dummy back in.