Six month old now refusing the dummy

[Secondtimemummyworries]

Dd has just turned six months old and for the past week has refused to take her dummy to help her to go to sleep and she will only go to sleep by comfort nursing (she is not hungry and is flutter sucking and falling asleep as soon as the nipple is in her mouth). She will wake up multiple times a night and will not sleep until back on the boob. I can’t keep carrying on like this and need to find another way to settle her as I am going to back to work soon which involves night shifts at times. Dh has tried rocking her and patting her while I’m not in the room so she can’t smell me and nothing seems to be working. Anyone have any tips?

My first guess would be possibly teething combined with the sleep disruption caused by starting solids if you've just done that in the past few weeks. 6 months was a really rough time for sleep for mine, I remember. That said, multiple night waking and feeding to sleep is very standard still at that age. Honestly, it's probably one of those things you just need to power through with support (dh doing as much of the early evening shift as possible and the early wakings) so you get the maximum amount of sleep outside his work hours. She's still too little to be withholding feeds. It will all change again next month anyway. But if it is teething, I'd try some calpol once at bedtime and once middle of the night to see if it makes a significant difference.

Check her tongue and your nipples. Mine did that and was oral thrush.