Have I made a mistake using dummy?

[oliveaddict]

DD 3 months old and formula fed. Loads of issues with reflux and cmpa and she is not a great sleeper, I introduced a dummy from when she was a few weeks old and it became obvious I didn't have milk supply. It soothes her instantly when settling to sleep.

However... what started off as a good way to soothe her has now become a pain in the arse as she wants it replacing every time it falls out - sometimes this can be every 20 minutes for a while during the early hours!

It soothes her so well and she loves it, we only use it for sleep time. But it now means I am getting no bloody sleep.

Would you stick with it until she can put it back in herself or try and wean off it? I'm terrified to lose my magic soothing trick but also sick of having to plug it back in!

Stick with it until she has 'found her hands' ie can manoever a thumb into her mouth on her own. Then go cold turkey - in about 2 days she will replace dummy with thumb - you might need to hold her thumb to her mouth a few times to give her the right idea

Mine all did this at about 4 months

Stick with it. Put loads of dummies in the cot and she'll find them eventually.

5 months and lo started putting dummy in her mouth herself :)

God I would love it if she could put it in herself! I would buy her a mountain of dummies!
I'm nervous about encouraging thumb sucking though as my friend had loads of dental issues from being a long term sucker 😂

Dont encourage thumb sucking! Terrible for teeth and can difform the thumb. My ds had the same issue. Lasted a month or 3 but now he's not that fussed, generally uses it to calm himself then when he's about to sleep spits it out. He's 8 months, only ever used it to sleep but when he was little he did stir if he lost it. A hand on chest patting a very soft heartbeat worked when I couldnt find dummy though.

NHS advice is to wean babies off dummies between 6-12 months. I’m not sure what to do if you want to stop the dummy use before that?

Dummies are great but there's a really annoying stage when they really like it but can't put it in for themselves. I used to keep a pot of them next to me so I could grab a new one easily if the last one had gone AWOL.

@newmum234 you'd just wean them earlier

Have a check for tongue tie if can't keep dummy in, just in case.

Postes too soom! That said, SIDS guidelines say if you use a dummy for sleep you should use it everytime they go to sleep. Common sense says this isnt forever though, so im not sure what age that stops. Im assuming 6 months.

As an aside, for us dummies are like a magic sleep trick. At (almost) 5 months DS is just beginning to show an understanding that dummies go in his mouth and hes trying to put them there.