Experience with weaning baby off dummy overnight

[Newmummy2225]

Hi all

My LO is 5 months old and has started waking nearly every hour for her dummy. She’s not hungry. She stopped feeding through the night really early.

Just wondering if anyone has experience of stopping the dummy at bed time and how you got on? My difficulty is that she’s not a particularly cuddly baby so I honestly wouldn’t know how to comfort her if she woke through the night and I hate the thought of leaving her to cry, although I’m considering it out of pure exhaustion.

Thanks I’m advance for any advice!

Try it and see?

I do plan to, I just wanted some advice / shared experiences before I attempt it

Have you tried a dummy clip so that she can learn to find it herself after it's dropped out?
This is what we had with my ds as a baby and as he got older the dummy was just for sleep times. At about age two we gave the dummy to the dummy fairy and she left a present for him - he gave it up then without issue.
We were reluctant to remove it earlier as he wasn't a great sleeper and the dummy did help him sleep better.

I do remember there being a transition though when he couldn't find it himself and I'd have to get up in the night to locate one to pop in.

No, haven’t tried a dummy clip as I don’t think she’d quite manage to re-insert just yet x

I think DD learned to put the dummy back in herself around 6months, and we put her in the cot with several so there is always one nearby. They also do flow in the dark ones too which are good. So if weaning her off it doesn't work you could try that.

Also, when you say she's not particularly cuddly do you mean she doesn't lean in for a cuddle? Or that cuddling just doesn't work? I only ask because DD didn't lean in for cuddles until much older than 5months but we could still rock her to sleep

We weaned off the dummy cold turkey when baby was 8/9 months. When they are this young it is possible. They forget so quickly. You do have to replace the comfort of the dummy with something tho, to lull them off to sleep. Just pick a night and go for it. Do anything else to get her to sleep and in a couple of nights she won't remember what her dummy is.

All of these things are calming and should help a tired baby calm down and drift off.
Loud long slow shushing noises
White noise
Hand on chest or back with slight pressure like a cuddle
Bum patting. You can be quite firm with this. It really relaxes them with the rhythm of it.
Back rubbing
Rocking in cot (or arms or pram)
A feed

Any combo of the above. If those become a habit you can wean off of those too, but you can do that gradually. The thing with a dummy is they've either got it in or they don't, whereas you can slowly reduce how much rocking or patting or shushing etc you do, and end up with a more independent sleeper eventually.

Did you know they actually have an innate desire to suck? It's a compulsion to build milk supply, so if you aren't replacing a dummy with the real thing (breast) how would they carry out this need to suck?

This is true of newborns, by 5m the suck reflex is pretty much gone - that's why the dummy is falling out. This is a brilliant age to remove the dummy btw, because they're so young they'll forget in a matter of days, and it hasn't had a chance to do any damage to oral or dental development.

I would put the dummy into their hand then guide that to their mouth. Sprinkle lots of dummies in arms reach and they’ll soon pick it up

Just to update here - for the past 10 nights I’ve been putting down my LO without her dummy. I expected a tough first few nights, but she’s been amazing! She just babbles and shuffles about for a few mins (literally the longest has been 10!) and falls asleep! The multiple wakings have stopped since then and she’s been sleeping like a dream! In fact, the other night she slept from 7.30pm thru to 7.15am!

She still needs her dummy for most of her day naps, but I am totally fine with that for the time being!

Hey just seen your post, my baby is 4 months and is going through the stage of spitting dummy out at night and crying. Did you just go cold turkey with your wee one or how did you do it at night. She really relies on the dummy putting her over so I’m unsure of how we will even get her to sleep without it but something needs to happen as she needs a good night sleep.