Waking every hour for dummy

[stillgoingstrong]

DS is 6 months (will turn 7 months at the end of Feb).

Had a terrible time through 4 month sleep regression which seemed to last forever, up every 30mins some nights. Then we got to a stage where he was waking every 2 hours to be resettled with a bottle, but he would barely take 1 oz so he was using it for comfort rather than genuine hunger. Some very very gentle sleep training knocked this out in 1 night, so I am happy that he was taking this milk through habit rather than hunger. Then we got stretches of 4-5 hours each night which was great.

Recently he has started waking every hour or 2 hours. I pop his dummy in, he settles straight away and then wakes up again and hour or so later. Have wondered whether he is actually hungry but he's not interested when I offer milk, he literally just wants to be resettled. Is there anything I can do to help this? We've had the odd night when

For context, he is FF, taking to puréed solids well, in his own room, has a dummy and MyHummy white noise machine, 91st centile. Daytime naps have always been tricky but has at least 3 naps a day, 2 of 45 minutes morning and afternoon and 1 longer one of 1.5-2 hours late morning/early afternoon. Goes down at 7pm, gets up for the day properly at 7am. Good bedtime routine of bath, bottle bed and goes down easily each night.

When I write all that down he sounds very good! It just seems that he's waking up tired in the morning and I can only think it's because his sleep is disturbed all night.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry, should have read - We've had nights where he's gone for longer stretches and a few nights ago he did 7pm until 5am, so I know he can do it.

Baby sleep isn’t linear. The adjustment to taking solids is disruptive, and as good has far fewer calories than milk it’s entirely possible he is hungry. You need to adjust your expectations a bit. Your baby will never grow or develop as much as he will in his first year. Growing to twice your size and developing billions of neural connections is never going to be plain sailing. He isn’t waking to annoy you.

You could try a Sleepytot, you can get them on Amazon. Worked wonders for us!

Thanks @TittyGolightly - completely agree. I didn't mean to sound like his night waking was an annoyance, it's just that he seems to wake up tired and I wondered whether there was anything I could do to help him (although of course I'd be lying if the extra sleep wouldn't be welcomed by me too!)

@itstheyearzero - thanks, have heard of these so will have a look.

Get rid of the dummy.

Routine/naps sound good and it definitely doesn’t sound like he’s hungry overnight.

I suspect it’s the dummy falling out that’s waking him. You could try encouraging him to replace it himself and throw several into the cot at night, however, at 6 months it’s likely to be a couple of months until he successfully manages this. Personally I’d be tempted to ditch the dummy altogether and see if he can learn to settle without it (prepare for a couple of nights of crying though).

Get a sleepytot! DD went from waking hourly for her dummy to sleeping 7.30-7.

You may have to teach him how to use it, but for us it has been a godsend! I sewed it onto her sleeping bag with a short ribbon so it is always close to hand.