Six month old DS will only sleep if we hold his dummy in - help!

[Scorpette]

My DS is 25 wks old. He's always been a good sleeper - was sleeping through the night at 7 wks - until teething kicked in @ a month ago. The only thing that soothes him is sucking. He is EBF so I don't mind him being stuck on me all day but the nights are hell. He can only sleep if his dummy is in his mouth - but as soon as he falls v deeply asleep, his mouth slackens and it drops out. Then the pain kicks in and he rouses and wails for it to be put back. He's too little to be able to pick it up and put it back in himself.

This means that one of us is getting up every 30-60 mins throughout the night. Sometimes we have to sit by the cot holding it in for ages. DP gets up more than me, but the cot's on my side of the bed so he bumbles about, sits on my legs by accident, etc., so I don't actually sleep.

We give him Calpol before bed and apply teething gel gently in the night, but it only stops things being even worse instead of helping. In the day, he will suck his thumb or fingers, but can't seem to work out to do this at night, grrr. In the day, he naps on me after BFing, and I've started having to keep my nipple in his mouth or hold a dummy in then. In the night, he doesn't want feeding or cuddling; he wants to sleep but can't/won't without his dummy. He won't accept those special teether dummies.

We are at breaking point; DP works 45+ hrs a week in a job requiring extreme concentration and precision and I suffer from CFS, so rest is paramount, and have had a chronic anal fissure since giving birth and am in severe pain 24-7 and sleep is the only thing that eases it. Because he'll only nap on me in the day, I can't nap myself (he'll only feed with me sat straight up, with him laying across the BF pillow).

I daren't bring him into bed with us because my DP moves around a lot and occasionally acts out his dreams (which does nothing to help me sleep!) and DS doesn't like laying down with us next to him anyway.

I just don't know what to do. We can't go on like this. We are getting @ 2 hrs of broken sleep a night. My CFS and bum pain are so bad that I can't walk properly or stand up straight any more and I keep crying. DS is in pain all day too and can only be soothed by being danced/jiggled about; cuddling him sitting or laid down is a no-go. It's crippling me. He's also v badly constipated and nothing can make him poo.

Sorry it's so long! Does anyone have any tips or ideas? Anything will be greatly received.

Are you certain it's teething? This sounds quite extreme. Could he just have got used to sleeping with something in his mouth? If it is teething please try ashton and palmers powders - they are realy good and can be used alongside calpol and gels. Also calprofen can be better than calpol for teething as it is anti inflammatory....

Your poor thing - sounds rotten whatever the cause. How about you and DP split the night? E.g. one sleeps with DS until say 2am and then other takes over so you at least get 1 4-5 hour chunk? We did this for a while - it was a sanity saver.

Or take alternate nights. You both being woken up so much is crazy.

Also - No cry sleep solution is excellent for these types of will only sleep with boob in mouth babies.

We don't have a spare bed & have 2 small sofas that can't be slept on so we're all stuck in the same room. If I'm woken up, I take ages to drop off again, even when DP does dummy duty.

He is definitely teething; he is very 'sharp' when feeding and you can feel them just under the gums. He gnaws on my knuckle or his Sophie giraffe toy all day long. He never used to sleep with a dummy at all until teething, so I am hoping it is just connected to this. We're terrified it's becoming a habit that he'll not give up when the current problem resolves itself. Before teething, he was as good as gold all night - we never heard a peep from him.

Am going to check out Calprofen, teething powders and that book, cheers :)

Maybe the constipation is related? I would take him to a doctor to see if you can get something to ease that (assuming you've tried all the standard normal solutions such as a bit of dilute juice).

If you really are at breaking point I would work out a way of sleeping separately - okay, so not on the sofa, but it doesn't take much to sort out some sort of makeshift bed and a set of earplugs for the next few days. Assuming it's teething it won't go on for that long so reassure yourself with the mantra 'this too shall pass' - if it helps. (I rarely manage to break into a smile when I'm at a low point with this stuff too... my 23mo twins have just had a hellish weekend of getting-their-back-molars teething and I had a complete sense of humour failure with the lack of sleep.)

If it is more than just the teething, and to be honest it sounds as though it is - it could be that he is just becoming over-dependent on having something in his mouth - then my tactic would be to put him in his own room and start a very gentle sort of sleep training. If he wakes in the night at the moment and he's right next to you, you don't know whether or not if he was left for a minute or two he wouldn't settle back to sleep. You may be making things worse by continually putting the dummy back in, although understandably it seems like the best thing to do. One of my girls is v dependent on her dummy but still, once she's asleep she doesn't need it the whole time. I did something called 'spaced soothing' with my girls - would leave them for one minute, go in and settle, the next time two minutes, and etc. - never needed to leave them for more than 3 minutes before they would settle back to sleep. Good luck, these times are tough, but they WILL pass soon.

Thanks, Lottie, but I'm afraid it's all stuff we've tried or is impossible. We live in a v small flat and there's no space or materials to make a spare bed with or to put it and nowhere for DS to have his own room. We're looking for a bigger place, but that's no comfort right now!

We are waiting several minutes when he cries; it takes that long for us to fully wake, have a whispered argument about whose turn it is, then for the hapless loser to stumble out of bed, get to the cot, find the fallen-out dummy in the dark then put it in his mouth. We're certainly not doing it the second he makes a sound. But if we do wait too long or just try to soothe him by placing a hand on his chest or something, he wakes up properly and has a meltdown, which can go on for hours. We took it in turns to deal with him screaming inconsolably for 3 hours in the small hours of Saturday morning because we decided to see if he'd go back to sleep if we didn't put the dummy in.

A while back, I suspected silent reflux, which our Dr confirmed, but wouldn't give me anything as she says the stuff he needs has to mixed with formula and I BF (I suspect this is bollocks and tried to ask about expressing, etc., or non-medicine things I can do but she fobbed me off). The poor boy is teething, has reflux, trapped wind and is constipated. It breaks my heart to watch him suffer. Sorry to go off track; emotions a bit close to the surface due to exhaustion!

Hope you had a better night. I've just had the weekend from hell with my two, teething-wise. I'm sure that this time will pass soon, the shit bits always do, and you'll start to get more sleep. In the meantime, one thing we do is keep a stock of dummies by the side of our bed so we're not scrabbling around looking for the one which (in our case) has inevitably fallen out of the cot.

If you suspect silent reflux but aren't happy with what the doctor said, seek a second opinion. That sounds like utter bollocks re. only working with formula - on what grounds could this possibly be the case?!

Agree with lottie get back to the Drs if you suspect silent reflux might be the cause. One of the possible options is infant gaviscon, which does need mixing with milk, but can be mixed with EBM. The other (more effective/stronger) treatments are given via syringe anyway so feeding method is irrelevant.

Sorry can't help re the dummy issue, but if you think there is another cause (like reflux) then fixing that might help him to sleep longer anyway. My DD had silent reflux and the excess stomach acid hurt her throat, but also caused lots of tummy discomfort. Once we got the acid fixed, the problem went away.

D

Poor you! It won't be long (long enough for you!) before he can put his dummy back in his own mouth. To help him learn this, during the day always put his dummy in his hand so he brings it to his mouth himself (or you put it in whilst he holds it). Maybe you can also try to have him nap in the cot during the day. It might be a bit of a struggle at first but persist for a week and see how it goes.
I would also recommend that you agree between you who is going to get up so that you don't have to argue about it and both be fully woken up! Perhaps the the one who is going to be on dummy duty should sleep on the side of the cot.