Any tips to ditch dummy at 4months? DS waking all night - DESPERATE!

[Prawncat]

DS is 4 months (18 weeks) and for the last 3 weeks or so he wakes approx every hour at night and only has 20min naps during the day. I think its because he cant settle without the dummy, as most of the time he goes straight back to sleep when I pop it in.
I just dont know how to ditch the dummy. How would I soothe him instead without introducing other negative sleep associations? How do I know if hes hungry or not?
I am sooooo tired, anxious and tearful, really need some sleep. I also have a 3.5 year old who is a handful and very aggressive towards his baby brother, and am in the process of trying to get my alcoholic husband to leave. Please help!!!!

With all the other stuff going on, I'd say just let him keep the dummy. If he is hungry then he will just cry with the dummy anyway. Give yourself a break, if you don't want him to have a dummy long term you still have time to get rid of it, but I think this is the least go your problems.
Big unmumsnetty hugs, sleep deprivation plus stress is a killer.

We tied a thin muslin to the dummy for a month. Then ditched the dummy. DD still sleeps with the muslin (18 months) but doesn't lose it so no night wakening.

My lo is the same age and we had the same problem so have also ditched the dummy

We tried cold turkey on day 1 and after 2 hours of screaming decided that wouldn't work so for a few days we either did naps in buggy while walking cos he doesn't ever have dummy if we do that and at night I offered him breast instead knowing he wasn't really hungry but just wanted to suck in something, as he wasn't actually hungry, he decided for himself he didn't really want to suck after all - and so far it's working - only 1 wake up last night and that was for genuine hunger

Hope that helps and good luck - they say at this age it only takes 3 days to break habits

Hope ^^ does help but do bear in mind that lots of babies get temporarily more unsettled at this age and it can just last a few weeks.

The HV told me today that dummies used as comfort (sleep time etc) are totally fine at this age (my dd is 14 weeks) and they are easy enough to take away when they are older. If he won't sleep without it I would just let him have it. My dd has hers for sleeping and if she is hungry she will cry even if she has it. Don't worry about him having it at this age, plenty time to take it away later