Ergh this is awful. He's starting to scream at the start of most naps. It's almost like he's getting worse (he was not too bad the first day we ditched the dummy, which is confusing). The two times I managed to get something into his mouth (once his thumb, once a little twist of muslin) he went to sleep within seconds. But that's generally not working and trying to encourage him to suck anything is just making matters worse. So I do think he's getting stressed because he wants to suck but I'm struggling to get him to suck anything else.
Thing is, I'm loathed to go back to the dummy now. We've made it this far. We ditched it Saturday night and apart from the settling issue, his sleep has improved. Yesterday he did 3 x 1.5 hr naps!!! That's literally unheard of.
It seems like
Give the dummy back and he'll settle himself to sleep calmly but will pull it out repeatedly and get hysterical over that. We'll also have months reinsterting it, which is hard work as it doesn't always work, he just spits it. I could tolerate a 2 second pop back in, but it wasn't working out like that.
Oh the flip side, stick to no dummy and we're starting to get hysterics at the start of most naps. However once he's asleep, his sleep is improving. He woke several times last night but went back to sleep quickly with just the muslin for most of them. After his 2am feed, he calmly rolled around in his crib for 15 mins then put himself to sleep. So he IS capable of doing it calmly, so I really don't want to go back to the dummy.
Thing is, when he does he hysterical, he either wants to feed to sleep or we end up holding him and rocking him. We've not had to do this since a newborn and I'm really worried about making even harder habits to break!! But I hate hearing him cry.
I honestly don't know what to do for the best.