And I mean thumb, specifically. If I try to offer my index finger (which is easier to wriggle out once she’s dropped off), let alone a cuddly toy or alternative, she kicks off! If she’s not fully asleep when I try to remove my thumb, she wakes up, grabs its and rolls back onto her side.
It was cute at first but now it’s taking longer and longer for her to fall asleep doing so and occasionally she wakes up a few minutes later and the whole process starts again!
Any ideas to wean her off it that doesn’t involve a replacement object (tried it)? Or do we just go cold turkey? Or accept it as a phase and suck it up for now?
For context, she was EBF but is now on three meals a day, and 4 bottles of formula (one before morning nap, one before afternoon nap, one before bed and then dream feed, though we’re trying to drop the dream feed).
She’s a good sleeper on the whole, can do 7-7 with a dream feed (and on two occasions recently, without), though has patches where she has one wake up for a feed in the night.
Just before the 8 month regression, we had a wonderful 2-week period where she could be fed, put down for a nap with a few nursery rhymes sung, and then left in her room to babble and gently fall asleep. The reliance on the thumb came with the sleep regression - we’re through the worst of regression now, which was mainly nap refusal (she sleeps 2-3 hours a day across two naps around 9.30am and 1.30pm), but the thumb as a crutch to drop off has remained.
She goes to nursery 3 full days a week and naps fine there.
Any advice or words of wisdom welcomed!