'crying it out' and using dummies

[Rubeywednesday]

Hiya, looking for some advice from those who've done it…

Going to try cry-it-out method with 7 month old this week. Got to say it is really the last resort as he is getting worse, and now waking for 7 or 8 times a night for either dummy put back in or just a cuddle. He is DC2 and i made the classic mistake of putting him in bed with me when he cried so as not to wake up DC1…. big mistake, he just wants to sleep with me all night but thrashes and shouts out resulting in two severely sleep deprived parents. He hasn't had a bottle at night for a couple of months now and I know it's just a comfort thing.

Anyhoo…. Am I going to have to go cold turkey on the dummy at the same time? This seems a bit brutal. He cant quite put it back in himself yet, though he valiantly tries. Do the 'rules' permit me to put his dummy in when I go into reassure him at intervals? I've never done this before, any advice much appreciated.

I've done this recently with my 8mo old.
Wouldn't have called it "crying it out" as it was quite a gentle one, but it sounds like you don't mean cry it out anyhow (which really means leaving them for the night with no comforting).
We also worried about the dummy thing as he wasn't putting it in himself, but it seemed cruel taking it. In our experience it was a lot easier than expected (to get an improvement)
We did a regime that involved comforting (patting/shhing and giving the dummy in the cot or a QUICK pick up/put down if you feel it will help) and then leave room for 1min and if still crying go back comfort, then 1.5min out, then 2 min etc to 5 min then back to 1min and repeat if necessary. We never got past 3 mins before he settled (and we only did that once after that we'd get to 1.5mins), but he seemed to get that he needed to get the dummy himself. I was surprised but it worked. We did try giving him the dummy to put in or guide his hand to it as well. Also if he was having any naps in the buggy during the day I tried to get him not to use the dummy (rattle or something instead the first few times).
Not sure if its coincidence as this was only last week but we got 5 nights with no dummy runs till 6am (the last 2 night were bad again but he has a tummy bug).
Hope this helps

thanks eexcitement, thats reassuring. And yes, I don't mean cry-it-out…. thanks for picking that up - On second reading, I was concerned my post seemed particularly hard-hearted!

Did CC with DS around that age and kept the dummy as he only ever got it for bedtime anyway.

Bought a dummy bunny which was great-it's a small toy with Velcro legs and you can attach up to 4 dummies to it. DS wasn't quite there with getting the dummy in himself but could reach and grab the bunny toy and could navigate one of the dummy legs into his mouth. It took about a week for him to master it. The Velcro has now lost it's stickiness but it had a good run.