10 week old addicted to dummy - please help!

[corkles]

Hello,

My 10 week old baby has developed a bit of an addiction to his dummy. He uses it for all of his daytime naps and to settle himself at bedtime.

I can put him down in his cot drowsy but awake and he’ll settle himself off to sleep, and it tends to fall out naturally after a little while but when he wakes he can’t get himself off to sleep without it.

It means I’ve been doing 5-6 dummy runs throughout the night and it’s getting really exhausting! I’m pretty sure it’s not hunger as he not properly crying and goes straight back off to sleep as soon as he has it back.

I’m struggling to decide what to do. Should I try to wean him off it now? He’s a really happy and contented little baby and I don’t want to make him grumpy, but I can’t go on like this!

Any advice much appreciated.

Have you tried giving him a feed at night in case he is hungry? Sometimes babies want to feed more when they’re going through a growth spurt

How many times are you feeding him during the night? If you are not feeding him and just giving him the dummy when he wakes, then he will wake again when he realises he is still hungry.

Some babies are just sucky-babies. I wasn't going to let DD have a dummy at all, no way no how. After three days, XP brought one to the hospital and the change was instant. She slept, I slept, she stopped screaming constantly, everyone was happy.

The dummy runs definitely suck but soon enough he'll be able to find it again by himself, especially if there are lots of them in the cot with him. Are you able to bring baby into your room or is that not an option?

I'd suggest it's better to have a dummy baby than a thumb-sucking baby. You can take away the dummy when it's time but thumbs are kind of...stuck.

Good luck with it all- it is rough as a badger's arse I know

At ten weeks i wouldn't worry too much.

As a PP mentioned, do make sure he is not hungry. My DSs were still feeding several times per night at that age and I was up at least three times to feed.

If definitely not hungry, I think it’s something you may just need to ride out. It’s great that you have a way for your son to get himself to sleep (my 2.5yo still needs help), so I’d stick with it for now, if I were you.

Are you feeding him overnight, 10 week olds should still be feeding every 2-4 hours, including overnight. If you try and replace feeds with a dummy he will of course continue waking the poor thing!

Same here, except DD is 16 weeks. I looked into this a few weeks ago after one particularly bad night when I was up and down like a yo-yo replacing the dummy. Afraid I didn't find any practical suggestions, but I did learn that you shouldn't wean a baby off a dummy at less than 6 months if they're used to sleeping with it - it increases the risk of SIDS.

What I can say is that it's become easier to cope with. Like most babies, DD has gradually become a better sleeper, and the dummy wakes face reduced as part of that. I've also become accustomed to waking up for it and can now fall asleep again pretty much instantly afterwards. It's still not ideal, but it's manageable until she's old enough to replace her own dummy, or be weaned off of it.

*have, not face. Stupid auto-correct

I'm pretty sure that the advice currently is that once you have introduced a dummy then to reduce SIDS risk it needs to stay in place until 6 months.

move the cot closer to the bed to you can just stick your hand through and put the dummy back in.

I agree with PPs though that at 10 weeks old they are probably still needing to feed a few times during the night.