5 MO dd waking more than 10 times for dummy!! help!!!!

[mumofjess]

MY dd is a star, she is doing everything else she is meant to be at her age but for the past 6 weeks, she has been waking at various intervalls thoughout the night, sometimes as little as twice which is fine bbut sometimes, like last night, more than 20 times!! Im at the end of my teather and my BF and i have discussed weaning her off her dummy. i would like to know of any further suggestions or about tried and tested dummy weaning. Thanks xx

We had a similar problem with dd, though slightly later - problems peaked around 7mths. No real advice for weaning from the dummy except to prepare yourself for a few horrible nights. But they should be quite few. We went cold turkey and I have horrible memories of standing in the utility room with her screaming in the middle of the night because it was the only place in the house I thought we might be out of earshot of my desperately in need of sleep DH! But she stopped looking for it surprisingly quickly - after about 3 days. Once she had stopped using her dummy, we then decided to do controlled crying to get her sleeping through. Controversial, but it worked like a dream for us. And such a relief to be rid of the dummy - the pain of sterilising them and the terror at being far from home with a screaming baby and no clean dummies left...And easier sooner rather than later, I think. Good luck!

Thanks alot for the warning, and the insight!! its definatly worth doing tho as the dummy is what she wakes for in the night. as for the controlled crying thing, im still in 2 minds about trying it. how did you go out it??

thanks alot, ill chuck them away n hope for the best!!!

WOW!! i just got my dd off to sleep (after 20 mins) without her dummy for the FIRST TIME !!! Now i aren't getting my hopes up cos i know she could wake up any second and i know the next couple of days and nights are going to horrid but, this is a step forward tho, right??

That sounds like a good start though!! We got rid of ds's dummies at 5 months for the same reasons as you. I sat next to his cot and shushed and patted him because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him to cry because I'd taken away his comforter, but it really only took a couple of days to crack it and then he would fall asleep by himself and sleep through properly.

The only thing I did find was that he started to try and suck himself to sleep on his bottle, which I finally realised when he projectile vomited 13 oz of milk across his room!! Until then I thought he was genuinely hungry [duh emoticon]. So that caused a couple of extra upset nights while he got over that but it really wasn't as bad as it could have been. I think at that age their habits aren't that deeply entrenched.

Hope she carries on doing so well.

Ha ha oh dear, thats not good, but well done for achieving what u have! yeh i agree totally about not leaving them to cry, they cant understand what is happening and they need the reassurance that everything is ok thru a cuddle from their mum/dad. I have gotten her out of feeding at night and she hasnt done so for about 2 months now and she used to sleep right through. i know they go thru phases of sleeping and not sleeping but this is getting silly now lol. lets just hope i can survive the next few days!! Thanks for the support!!

great start! Long may it continue for you.
xx

Well done...keep at it. I took dummy away from my now 14 week old just for evenings about 3 weeks ago and it has gone completely and all I can say is that settling him has got easier and easier (and believe me he was a NIGHTMARE!!) - I can now walk out with him wide awake but ready to sleep and he will go off with a bit of a moan but that's it and usually no longer than a couple of minutes. He's also just this week found his thumb so that has helped me for sure. I left him to cry for max 10 minutes the first time but he was more distressed with me going back in to see him. Next night it was 5 mins and now as I said, just a bit of a moan. Good luck but you'll all be better off in the long run.....