Dummy dependency = no sleep. Advice?

[Meandacat]

Hi - I feel I'm posting a slightly similar question to Rubymama's post on Friday, except for the fact that I am willing to trying CIO if I can be reassured it'll work...

DD is almost 6 months. She's been sleeping through for about 2 weeks now, but what started as us getting up once or twice a night to pop her dummy back in and help her re-settle has escalated into every two hours, then every hour and for the past couple of nights, almost every half hour! Aaargh! She doesn't fully wake - just complains noisily til it's back in place.

Feeling that this couldn't continue, and on the advice of HV, we put her in her own room last night for the first time (which we had intended to do anyway) and tried to resist putting the dummy back in, so she learns to re-settle without it. Torture! She complained/cried for an hour and then I lay awake for 2 more hours feeling absolutely terrible. We did go in frequently to comfort her and I tried PUPD but it seems all she wants is the dummy.

So... does anyone else have experience of this? HV seems convinced after a few nights she'll forget all about it and just sleep without the need for the dummy. Do we therefore just tough it out? SIL has suggested we scatter dummies around DD on the bed and try to teach her to find them herself. I'm not sure...won't she just cry and still wake us if she can't find them?

I've also just seen this in another thread:
www.sleepytot.com/blog/?p=291

Does anyone think it would be a good idea?

Hi, we did cold turkey with DS2 and his dummy the other month, and it had reasonable success, although as I was still feeding him in the night and so the suck to sleep thing never really went away, and after a couple of unsettled periods we're kind of back at square one.

If you can tough it out I am sure your HV is right and that within a couple of nights she will forget. We reassured DS2 but he did cry the first night, but on the second day he was already sleeping much, much better.

On the other hand, when DS1 was around this age I started putting him down to sleep with one dummy in his mouth, and two in each hand. As a result he learned to switch the dummy's over and over, which is what he still does now, at 2.5! He was a god awful sleeper for the first 7months of his life but teaching him to do this did really help.

So I don't really answer your question I suppose, it depends how desperate you are... I would say the cold turkey is probably the quickest solution and will save you having to consider breaking the habit later on, but is doubtless the hardest to have to listen to! Good luck!

I think cold turkey is probably the way. I'm just tackling PUPD to get 18 month old DD to settle herself, she hasn't since chickenpox. We are getting there so when done dummy dependancy is the next thing. I'll keep an interest in your thread and come and join when we start.

Thanks. I think we'll try and tough it out then. It's affecting her naps now too. But I just ended up shutting the door on her about an hour ago as I didn't know what else to do and, actually, she dropped off after about 10 mins of faffing with her toy rabbit... with no dummy.

Good God I wouldn't do cold turkey to a six month old. But I would use a sleeping bag and clip a dummy on. Also is night waking a dummy thing?

Cold turkey, search and remove all signs of dummies as out of sight does = out of mind (after a few days)

Progress last night - she didn't cry nearly as much already. But we left a few dummies around and put them in her hand rather than straight in her mouth. So I think I'm going to try two tacks: do as SIL says and scatter a few dummies around and also use the end of her blankie/comforter to tie a dummy on BUT this will depend on using a different style of dummy as she was getting frustrated at times. The handle and teat (only one right way up) was confusing her.

Also, I read here that taking your baby's dummy out his/her mouth before they fall totally asleep may help.

Just thought I'd post all this in case anyone else finds it helpful!

Meandacat, we were in exactly the same position & tried all the things you are now trying. I'm sorry to say that nothing, nothing, nothing worked except finally going cold turkey (at 9 months) & removing the dummy completely.

We did controlled crying to achieve this (I wouldn't recommend letting her to cry it out, controlled crying works much better for both child & parents): it took 3-4 nights. I can give you more details if you want. Taking away the dummy was the best thing we did for our DS's sleep.

I really don't believe 6 month olds can hold the dummy on their own & put it back in their mouth; some can perhaps, but I really don't think it's that common. There's no negative to cold turkey except for a few nights of crying which you can do, as I said, using a gradual approach (ie cuddle her the first night- without the dummy- go in every 5 mins the second night etc).

Maria2007 I would be interested to hear more details of how you approached this, if you don't mind? We have already tried cold turkey once with DS2 but I think he was a bit little and as he still feeds in the night was a bit confusing, so after a good start things have pretty much regressed to where we started .

As I mentioned DS1 did start to be able to put the dummy in his mouth when he was this age, but he was a lot more dextrous than DS2 seems to be.

Hi Meandacat. I am the biggest fan of the Sleepytot Baby Comforter EVER! We were in the same boat as you and it worked so well for us that I'm always recommending it.

Sounds like you're having success with getting rid of the dummy now anyway, but I would say that the Sleepytot is great if you change your mind. And it's cheaper at Kiddicare by the way. :-)

Chunkamatic: I'd be happy to give you more details.

As I said I disagree (based on my own experience but also from what I've heard from others) that babies can manage to hold their dummies that easily, particularly when (like your DD & my own DS) they're waking every hour for dummy.In these cases I think a more clearcut solution is what's best. And of course it's good anyway to get rid of the dummy, as you'll have the dummy problem on your hands later on, sooner rather than later is best I think.

But of course if, given your DD's age, you want to try a different approach, that's perfectly valid too, it might work for your DD :).

We removed the dummy & did controlled crying. Our DS was 9 months. It worked very well. We were very scared & ambivalent about doing CC but it was far easier than we had thought.

Our DS also has another comforter (from birth) so he was given that, on night one, and not the dummy. I cuddled him & stayed with him that first 1-2 hours until he finally fell asleep (without dummy). I then did the same every time he woke the first night.

Second night: I went in every 5 mins until he slept.

Third night: I increased, went in every 10 mins. By this night he was already managing to self-settle.

By the fourth night he was crying less & the worst we got was once DS cried for 20 mins. Once.

He then slept through.

Hi, just wanted to say that we had the same problem when we put DS in his own room for the first time at 6mo (I was the last person I know to put DS in his own room despite the SIDS guidelines!).

I bought the sleepytot mentioned above and DS's sleep changed overnight. I now get up a maximum of twice in the night but usually not at all or once.

The other advantage of the sleeptot is that when they're used to it you can start taking the dummies off one by one until it's just the rabbit left. A bit kinder IMO than suddenly taking the dummies away when they're too young to know what's happened.

It's possible that the 'sleeptot' or something similar may work, so it really depends, Meandacat, what you're willing to try before going cold turkey.

My experience (I did try things like the 'sleeptot') was that they don't necessarily work & cold turkey worked perfectly for us. However, each child is different so it could well work with your DC.

The main thing, if you go ahead & use 'sleeptot' or something similar, is to give it a fair amount of time to work, eg 2-3 weeks or a month. Then you'll have a good picture of whether it works & if it doesn't you can bite the bullet & go cold turkey.

HI
advice please! having had the joy of baby sleeping through at 7 months she has become dummy dependent which has got worse and worse since start of 2012 to the extent we are up and down 10 times+ between 11pm and 7am.
Please can someone suggest how we carry out control crying to reverse this situation - namely do we stop using a dummy and then gradually leave more and more time between going into to comfort her?

Thanks