What age did your baby start putting dummy back in?

[sunnyfields25]

Hi, just as the title suggests really...

DS is 5 and a half months old and I'm wondering how much longer until he can pop it back in himself. At the moment I can be sat for 30 mins or more for each nap trying to keep it in, which is tedious! He gets frustrated and cries if I don't let him pull it out, but then cries when he can't manage to put it back in again.

It probably doesn't help that we use NUK dummies which have a little ring which his thumb gets tangled in. But the other ones we tried left a rash on his face.

We have had a similar problem with my nearly 6 month old for the past 2 months - she went from sleeping 7.30-7 to waking up to hourly for her dummy! Bought a sleepytot last week - it’s a soft bunny you attach 4 dummies to - and she’s mostly back to sleeping through. She’s had the odd wake up where she’s thrown the whole thing to the end of the cot by accident, but I’m going to sew it to her sleeping bag on a very short ribbon to stop her losing it. I don’t want to speak to soon but think the sleepytot has saved my sanity!

I'd say around 7-10 months on average.

There are things you can do to help baby learn. Always give baby the dummy in their hands, stop putting it in baby's mouth for them. Hand baby the dummy the wrong way around so he has to turn it over and around in his hands before putting it in. Place dummy iut if reach on the floor and see if baby will reach for it. These kinds of things.

You also have the additional issue that even if baby can physically put dummy in, they don't usually search for a list dummy. Especially not in the night. So you need a way for baby to find and grab the dummy very easily. I sewed a ribbon into the chest of sleeping bags for this purpose, with a press stud at the end for dummy.

Thanks both for replies!

Sleepytot sounds good Sipperskipper, I'll have to look into that. Although touch wood DS isn't yet waking up in the night for his dummy, it's just at the start of every sleep that we have this problem. Not sure if that means we've avoided it or we still have the joy of night wakings to come!

Interesting suggestions FATEdestiny. I normally just keep popping the dummy back in for him when he gets frustrated, but I suppose I need to be doing more to teach him how to do it himself.