Self-settling: is removing dummy first step?

[ababycalledbrian]

My 6.5mo pfb wakes at least once, sometimes twice (plus a dream feed) in the night (and wakes pretty early but that's another story I think). I always end up feeding him - not back to sleep but to a point where he's drowsy. When I put him back in the cot he sometimes grizzles briefly but pretty much always goes to sleep. However, recently it's been really clear that he's not actually hungry at these wakes so it would be good to get him to self-settle.

He has a dummy when he goes down for each nap and at bedtime but it often comes out when he's gone off and he doesn't wake for it so that's good.

My question is: if we want to start trying other things to settle him - pu/pd, shushing, leaving him to grizzle for longer etc - then would we be better off getting him off the dummy first? I also give him a top-up feed before each nap so I can see that sucking and sleeping are very closely linked for him (not unusual of course). Is the first step to try to break that association?

Basically at the moment when he wakes at night I crack pretty quickly and feed as I know it's the quickest way for both of us to get back to sleep. Either I carry on doing this and hope that at some point he just starts sleeping through, or we try to actively manage him learning to self-settle. I'm too tired to be able to work out which is best!

I think losing both milk and the dummy at the same time would be pretty hard for him. Is he sleeping in your room?
I think not having the milk before the nap might be somewhere to start, as long as you can still get him to nap, of course
I'm not a great example as have had two, neither of whom slept through by one year. But we did more sleep by partially co-sleeping and bf.

That's a good point - thanks. As you suggest, today I've started by not feeding before naps and then might progress to going cold turkey on the dummy. Might have to delay the plan though as we're both getting ill. Curses.

No, he's not in our room and the co-sleeping thing has never worked for him or me so I don't really have that option in my armoury...

When I weaned my dd off the dummy at about four or five months it was surprisingly easy, though I had built it up in my head as a major event. But I agree that taking milk and dummy together might be a bit tough. Try cutting the pre nap milk, and take it from there. Also, if you're not popping the dummy back in during the night it may not make that much difference to take it away.

Overall though, I would quietly suggest that trying to actively manage night sleep can be very stressful for you and ds too. You need a good run at it, and a constitution of steel! Taking the path of least resistance and letting some time go by would be my preference. I know it sounds corny but at some point your instincts will tell you what changes to make, regardless of how tired you are!