Should I persist with dummy or give up?

[NewMumSept2014]

Hi. DS (6mo) has feeding problems (bottle refuser) and has always fed to sleep as that's the only time he will accept bottle.
Despite this he's actually been pretty good at sleeping at night until now. Last week or so he's gone from sleeping from 7 or 8 to between 3 and 5.30 (bottle) then going back over, to being up at 12, 4, sometimes 5 and up at 6 for the day.
He took a dummy when he was small but stopped being as interested in it at about 12 weeks so we stopped it in the hope that he might suck his thumb to self soothe. He never did and has obv been using the bottle to soothe instead.
I've been trying to reintroduce dummy to see if this will help and it's pretty useful for naps but at night when he wakes I need to stand there holding it in his mouth with one hand and holding his hands out of the way with the other. If I do this for maybe 20-30 mins he will go over without too much fuss but will often wake again in 15-20 mins and the cycle repeats.
Will he learn to use it independently or am I making another rod for my own back?

6 months is late to be getting baby to accept a dummy. They are easier to establish the younger baby is and it's possibly you've left it too late. Dummy needs to be used consistantly to be any use as a sleep association.

As for using it independantly - that's a different thing. Even a baby how has been using a dummy from birth would be unable to use it independantly at 6 months old.

How is baby's pincer grip? Does baby pick up small objects between thumb and forefinger? How about passing objects between hands? Placing objects down in specific positions (rather than just letting go)? Turning objects over and around in hands?

These are all of the skills needed to be able to use a dummy independantly. They tend to develop in the 8-10 month age. You can practice - hand dummy to baby in his hands, for him to put in himself. Give him the dummy the wrong way around. Place dummy on floor to be picked up and put him himself, place dummy out of reach so he has to move to get it. Place dummy out of eyeline (for example by his feet) and see if he can get it.

These are all skills baby develops with age, it's unrealistic to expect baby to use a dummy without your help until these milestones are met. Once baby can use a dummy on own, then it becomes a game-changer.

I had the cot next to my bed through until baby could do own dummy. Until then, it makes the night time dummy reinserts a million times easier being able to do it without getting out of your duvet or even opening your eyes.

6 months is very late to be getting baby to accept a dummy. You may have left it too late. The earlier they are introduced the easier they are to establish. Especially in a bottle refuser who's not a fan of teats.

Having said that, using dummy independantly is a different and seperate matter. It's developmental.

How is baby's pincer grip? Passing things from one hand to the other? Placing objects down rather than letting go? Manipulating and turning objects around? These are all skills baby needs to develop to be able to use a dummy independantly. In my experience it happens in the 7-10 month range.

There are things you can do to practice. Hand dummy to baby in hands every time, so he puts it in himself. Hold dummy out of reach so he has to reach for it. Give dummy the wrong way around so he has to turn it over before putting it in. Place dummy out of eyeline (at feet for example) so he has to move to get it.

These are all developmental skills and it's unrealistic to expect baby to be able to use dummy independantly until physically capable.

I kept the cot by my bed until baby could do dummy inserts independantly. Until then, being able to do dummy inserts without getting up out of my duvet or even opening my eyes makes a big difference.

I am not sure i would be inclined to get up, walk to another room, dummy insert and settle, then walk back to my room every time it was needed. Not a problem when you have a dummy user who is sleeping through. But a dummy user waking in the night still, no chance I'd be ploddibg from one room to another all night. I'd be too knackered to cope with that.

sorry about double (now treble) post. I clicked post first time and everything I wrote vanished. So I typed it all out again and now I see it posted after all. Grr

Thanks FATE, I really appreciate the time you've taken to reply. In my gut I think you're right. I guess I was hoping that the dummy would be the easy answer to everything but it doesn't seem very likely at the moment. No, he definitely doesn't have the fine motor skills to find/ reinsert dummy at the moment, i guess I was more asking if he was likely to learn how to suck it properly without me having to hold it there.
I think he's going through a development spurt/ sleep regression thing too. He's just figured out that he can roll over and use his legs to push himself about in the cot and he can't help doing it every time he wakes up. Hopefully it'll settle soon! I'm sure this happened with DC1 too but it's so hard to remember even after just a couple of years. It all fades into a sleep deprived blur!

I would give up, some babies take to dummies and some don't. My son loved his and took to it from birth and was hard to separate from it till he was about 4. My two daughters were introduced to a dummy from birth but quickly spat it out and never took to it again.

This hyper-mobile stage when you have to hold baby still or they are flying around everywhere in the cot is definately a 'thing'. It's a difficult sleep stage to go through any way, with or without the dummy.

I don't think the dummy will be making this phase any more difficult. I would imagine without the dummy you'd still have to wait by the cot holding hands/legs still in order to help baby be still enough to go to sleep. The dummy might even make this easier because at least you have less crying happening alongside the flaying limbs.

Personally, if keep going with the dummy. It's a nightmare sleep phase anyway so it's not like not using the dummy will make everything magically easier. Just like using the dummy is not a magic wand. But, longer term, the dummy is a fantastic independant sleep tool. I don't think there is anything better (I'm biased though). So whilst it may add nothing to (and detract nothing from) your sleep quality now, in 6 months time it definitely will make independant no-crying sleep easier. So with a long-term view, i wouod definitely keep going if it was me.