Dummy falling out

[Tabitha1983]

Help! Anybody got any tips! Or do I just accept this and ride it out?!Literally been up every hour last night to re-insert dummy 😩 Baby sucks dummy and happily falls asleep (dummy falls out-which is fine) other than he then wakes hourly and needs dummy to go back to sleep!! I've offered milk but he's not fussed, nurses for 1-2 mins then asleep so assume he's not hungry? Family are pressuring me to loose the dummy so he sleeps better but I literally can't imagine how people cope without a dummy?!! He is a very content baby and naps well so his poor sleep at night is surprisingly really 😕 There maybe is no answer.....? X

How old is he OP? My DS was exactly like this. We used a dummy to help him settle to sleep and he napped brilliantly during the day, bang on schedule, then at night I could be up every few hours inserting the dummy. This was more around 4-7 months after the night feeds had reduced/stopped.
To be honest I never even considered taking the dummy away as it was such a good tool to get him to sleep. From what I read at the time, a lot of babies can go through sleep regression around 4 months which is exactly what this was for my DS. At 7 months he just started sleeping through, pretty much overnight without us doing anything. We'd still have nights where we'd need to get up and put dummy in but much less. Then he learned to put it back in himself and all was well.
He's 2.5 now and we still use the dummy for night time but he's starting to lose interest. I'm due DD in a few weeks and will be encouraging a dummy on her!

Morning Heather...oh that's reassuring thanks! Really can't face loosing the dummy...like you say..it's such a gr8 tool for self soothing. He's only 3.5 months tho...hope I'm not up every hour until he's 7 months! Might just have to try and ride it out for a bit & hope for the best? Feeling v tired today 😴

OP, hopefully it won't last long for you, my DS is 5 months old now and can put his dummy back in by himself now. I just make sure there's a couple of them in his cot so he can usually find one himself in the night. I do occasionally have to go in his room and pop one in for him but that's not usually until he's stirring at about 6am - gives me an extra 2 hours sleep at least so I don't really mind doing that for now.

Ideally, I wanted to be rid of the dummy by 6 months but I don't think DS will let me so it might have to stay a bit longer. I really don't like seeing toddlers tottering around with dummy's in, I think it just looks strange so I think I'll aim to get rid by the time he's walking!

I wouldn't worry about it and don't let people pressure you into getting rid of it if you don't want to. If it's working for your son then carry on. It's not like he's 3.5 years old is it!

There's two issues:
(1) light sleeping
(2) finding and replacing dummy

Your baby is sleeping in cycles. There will be a period of light sleeping between one sleep cycle and the next (about every 40 minutes). Light sleepers wake up in this light sleeping phase. Deep sleepers stay asleep. You have yourself a light sleeper.

Light sleeping is usually a cumulative effect of

• not enough sleep over the whole 24 hour day
• not enough calories over the whole 24 hour day.

Frequent naps and frequent feeds is the answer. Reduce the amount of time between every feed and every nap - so there are more of them per day.

Finding the dummy at night:

• cosleeper cot (remove one side off any cotbed make a s stable 3-sided full sized cot to wedge against your bed).

• see a ribbon onto the chest of your sleeping bag (length to reach ear) with a press stud at end.

You can then lean into the cot, locate ribbon, locate dummy, reinsert without opening your eyes or moving from under your duvet.

Definately don't look at clock or count wake ups. This is no good for your wellbeing.

Thanks Fate...that makes sense!...it actually felt like every 40mins so probably was lol! Do sleep cycles get longer?...or how do babies eventually learn to sleep all night? (Not that I'm expecting that at 3 months don't get me wrong- just thinking Into the future!) Don't know how long I could sustain such broken sleep...fine in the short term. His night sleep seems to be getting worse not better??!
Day naps seem ok-has 4 naps all about an hour sometimes slightly more (but only if held or pushed in pram) and I breast feed on demand...roughly every 2-3 hours.
I have a snuzpod attached to my bed so I was just leaning across...like the idea of the ribbon though to make locating dummy easier 😀 Feel like a zombie today so baby mustn't feel gr8 either!

I think the first thing here is to set your expectations. You could well be having broken nights until 12 months, so being realistic about it will make you develop coping mechanisms for broken nights sleep.

Sleep cycles don't get longer. The better a baby sleeps the deeper they sleep. The deeper their sleep, the less likely baby will wake between one sleep cycle and the next.

So the key is simply get baby sleeping more. Resetting quickly back to sleep, lots of frequent sleep over 24 hours. Limited awake time.

Quick, efficient ways to make getting to sleep as easy as possible for baby. Usually your presence, something to suck, movement and a full tummy.

Baby will not develop the physical dexterity skills to put own dummy in until about 8-10 months. It will be longer until baby can search for and find a lost dummy in the night - so developing ways of finding the dummy easily is important for the child.

We have glow in the dark dummies, much easier to locate and stick back in, even if they do look rather odd when you roll over in the night!

My DS is 14 weeks and wakes every hour but needs feeding, I wish sticking his dummy back in would send him back to sleep!