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Baby stirring in night - put dummy in or not?

3 replies

sarahlou31 · 01/11/2015 20:43

My 16 week old had slept fairly well at night until about 3 weeks ago when she started waking every 90 minutes and I was then getting her out the crib and breastfeeding her back to sleep. We've made quite a lot of changes in the past few weeks as I realised that the problem was that she was used to feeding to sleep so was always needing that to get back to sleep.
Previously she hadn't taken a dummy but I've now introduced one as I realised she was often using me as a dummy in the night and wasn't really taking that much milk. We also put her down awake - I started this at nap times and then at bedtimes. I'm so pleased with how it's worked out and she generally goes off to sleep herself in a matter of minutes for both naps and bedtime which is fab. She has a dummy and one of those teddies with a blanket bit as a comforter and I play soft music at nap times and white noise at night.
So getting her to sleep isn't an issue. What happens though is that she stirs several times in the night and calls out but doesn't actually cry. I find if I put her dummy back in she will then settle fine and go back to sleep. When she wakes around 1am and 4am I feed her instead.
What I'm wondering is do I need to be putting the dummy back in or do you think she'd settle herself without? I know I should probably wait before going in but I always think that if I didn't go into her when she starts calling out she'll eventually wake up fully and then it'll take ages to settle her. My plan is to in a few weeks use nap times to get her to try to fall asleep without the dummy so should I just keep on putting it in for now?
Sorry, I realise this is a bit rambling! Just getting a bit stressed that she'll never sleep through the night although I'm proud of what I've achieved in terms of not having to feed her or rock her to sleep as I was doing before.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
bonzo77 · 01/11/2015 21:00

You'll only know if you try. I'm not a fan of offering "sleep aids" that the baby cannot access them self. We gave My oldest a Muslin which he could easily find himself. My second used to sing to himself (as we had sung to him).

KatyN · 01/11/2015 21:31

I would be tempted to check the sofa advice on this. I think (I am totally not sure) that if a baby is used to a dummy you should not remove it before 6 months. I think the understanding being that it reminds them to breathe.

However, if she's just started using one then she probably isn't reliant on it yet.

My son was a big dummy fan from about day 3 so we spent many a night putting it back in until he learnt to do it himself. You have my utter sympathy if it's waking you up.. I can't remember when he first learnt to put it in himself but there was cries of delight for sure.

Fairy45 · 01/11/2015 21:49

I jump out of bed the moment my baby grumbles to get the dummy back in. I spent a week trying not to do that but then she would just get louder then ball her eyes out then take an hour to settle (once she took 5 hours!) Even after a feed. Its worth a shot but I look at it as it takes 1 minute to get the dummy back in as opposed to god knows how long comforting. Having said that I wish I hadn't used a dummy in the first place. I offered it because when she was waking it was only for 2 sucks of the bottle. Not sure any of that has helped but both in same boat so thought I'd offer support at least :)

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