Big increase in night waking - go with it, or sleep train?

[teamnomistake]

DS2 is 20 weeks. Since about 8 weeks he was a champion sleeper, using a dummy to get to sleep, waking once or occasionally twice for a feed and settling right back down without the dummy. It was lovely.

But for the past three weeks he has woken up more and more, now about 5-6 times a night. I know this is prime sleep regression time and at first just fed every time. But it's been going on a while so now I settle back with the dummy unless it's at least midnight (for first feed) or 4am (for second feed). He does settle quite well with the dummy, but I'm worrying that using it more and more is creating one of those pesky Rods for my Back. So maybe we should try and ditch the dummy?

I'm also wondering if he's started waking through habit and if any kind of sleep training would help? Or if I should just go with it for now and hope that things will improve on their own.

Sorry this is quite rambly, would love to hear any words of wisdom.

I think if a dummy works for night-times, then keep it in the mix. I found that my baby DSs sleep habits changed radically (for the better) once we started weaning. When he was born in 2000 the advice was 16 weeks which probably coincided nicely with what seems to be called 'sleep regression' these days... and one rather cancelled the other out. You'll probably have to stick it out to 24 weeks if you're following current advice. Good luck