5 month unsettled every 30-45 mins

[LittleMissRayofHope]

My DS is 5 months. He had reflux but meds have been stopped now. Yay.
Due to this he never learned to sleep on his back. He slept on his side and sometimes his front. He learned to suck his thumb a few weeks ago and it has ruined his long naps! As he cant find the bloody thing! He also curls up when he is searching for it so tips himself over and gets upset. He used to nap for upto 3 hours, now it's 30 mins then cries for his thumb, so I have to go, put it in, hold it there while he settles and leave again. Frustrating, tough on my dd and also not good for DS. Plus if I try to nap means I get about 20 mins only.

How can I improve this?? He won't be put on his back, he just startled himself constantly. Won't go on his front cos he can't roll over so gets upset and now struggles on his side.
I'm losing it!!

How would you feel about offering a dummy instead of a thumb if your son likes to comfort suck?

I held off the dummy because I didn't want to have to put it back in.
At this stage I don't see how a dummy is any different. I wanted him to thumb suck cos I thought he would be able to pacify himself without my help.

It just seems to have made things worse!! Unless he drops into a deep sleep then he can sleep a few hours without help but otherwise it's just so strange!!

Well, not wishing to state the obvious here, but I don't need to re-insert my daughters (4+ months) dummy every 30-45 mins. Indeed she has it for about 10 minutes until dropped into a deep sleep and that's usually it until she wakes in the morning. On the odd night that she wakes and just needs settling, reaching over to re-insert dummy is dead simple.

By the time your DS has learnt to find his own thumb, he would also have learnt to find his own dummy should he wake.

I suspect you are imagining a dummy to be far, far worse than it actually is.

Having said all of that, 5 months is very late to introduce a dummy so he may well not accept one anyway.