Ditch dummy or not?

[Blodwyn831]

Hi all. My 6mo ds has had a dummy since I gave up breastfeeding at 3 months. He's a very sucky baby (used to feed to sleep and suckle while asleep). Takes great comfort from the dummy when upset, teething, in car etc as well as for sleep. BUT we have to replace the dummy 6 or 7 times a night enthusiasts he wakes up. We're considering ditching the dummy but don't want to regret it in future when we want to be able to comfort him or do a long cast journey etc. What are your experiences of this? Has anyone given up the dummy and regretted it?

Not enthusiasts, every time

At 6 months we only gave him a dummy for naps and night sleep - we took it off him through the daytime - and he did have a phase of waking at night when it dropped out that lasted a few weeks, and then he got past it and started spitting it out and not waking up. We also put a few dummies in his cot so he could have a feel around and find one himself.

We took it off him completely just before he turned 2 and it was no problem at all, he just rolled over and went to sleep without it!

We ditched the dummy at 6 months - took literally one night and then he never ever looked for it again! We just distract him with other things in the car now eg toys/books but I actually think hes become less whiney since ditching the dummy….

It’s early days, the losing dummy phase doesn’t last long as they soon figure out how to find it and just stick it back in themselves. In the long run I continued to find it useful to have one for a while. We just had one for sleeps and naps, it wasn’t hard to get rid of it when the time came.

Thanks everyone, really interesting to see people's different experiences. It's so hard to know. Maybe I'll really try with the replacing his own dummy for a while and see if that helps, plus reduce to sleep only. Then if still no good ditch it.