Dummy and four month regression

[Dillybear]

Hello, I’ve posted on here before about my daughter’s sleep and got some useful advice, so I’m back for more!

DD is now 17 weeks old and in the past few days I think we’ve entered the four month sleep regression. She’s started waking more frequently overnight wanting the dummy - I think it was roughly hourly wake ups last night from around midnight onwards.

I’ve worked hard with DD to get her to be able to go to sleep where she’s going to stay asleep. Now, for all sleep I put her down in her crib (a next to me one) and she has her dummy and goes to sleep with me lying next to her holding her hands or stroking her face. This is a huge improvement from being fed/rocked/bounced to sleep before being put down (only for her eyes to ping open again!). Her taking a dummy was a big part of us achieving this.

She is currently having three naps a day: 30-45m, 2.25h, and then 30-45m. I often have to resettle her after 30m of her lunchtime nap by replacing the dummy a couple of times but it’s clear she wants to sleep so it’s not difficult to resettle her. However, sometimes she stirs but doesn’t wake fully so I don’t need to do anything. Even from being two months old she has liked an early bedtime so she goes down somewhere around 7, depending on when her last nap ended/how tired she seems. Her awake time before bed is usually 2-2.5 hours (I aim for 2 to be on the safe side). She goes down to sleep contentedly, just some days she takes longer to actually fall asleep than others. She has a dreamfeed (though is taking half the quantity of what she was taking before) and then wakes once for a feed in the night. Sometimes she wakes around five but will settle back to sleep in my arms. Most days I then wake her up for the day around 7.15.

Although DD taking a dummy has improved her sleep significantly, which is great, my worry with it was always what would happen if she needed it replaced between every sleep cycle come the four month regression. I appreciate that popping the dummy back in her mouth is much less effort than having to get up to feed or rock her to sleep, however, waking up every hour is not ideal whichever way you look at it. I’m not sure if this will just resolve itself in a few weeks or whether the dummy is such a sleep prop that she won’t be able to link sleep cycles without it.

Does anyone know whether the regression can resolve itself? Or do I need to do some more work on sleep with DD - possibly to get rid of the dummy? If so - please tell me how as I genuinely don’t know how she’d sleep without it at this point.

Also, just out of interest, did anyone notice a change in the length of their child’s sleep cycles after or during the regression? Did you see nap lengths change etc? Probably due to the monotony of lockdown, I have been finding baby sleep quite interesting to learn about so I’m curious to know what I might see from DD to indicate that her sleep cycles have matured.

Thanks so much in advance.

I'm so sorry, how worrying. That just doesn't sound manageable at all. I know you're regretting giving the dummy now but I'm sure you did it because you needed to at the time - it was the only thing that 'worked'. What else did the sleep training lady say? Have you considered taking the dummy away?

Things are going a little better over here. She's back to her normal wake ups during the night and we are working on her going to sleep without me in the room - it's going quite well although I do need to pop in to give her the dummy back before she actually falls asleep still. I'm also questioning whether it would be worth trying to wean her off it altogether or if I should just wait until she can replace it herself.

Aww glad things have got better for you. The problem is they don’t recommend weaning off the dummy just yet as there’s a risk of SID’s so I think just persevere for a few more weeks see if I can get him to grasp the dummy himself , what a mess 😢

Also you are prime time for 4 month regression. I found 6 months onwards way easier!

I am very much pro-dummy (I had one and not just for sleep until I was 6!) so when my twins were born (now 3 mo)I started them with a dummy effectively from day 1. I know I have the dreaded "4 mo regression to deal with any time now but at the moment the girls have a dummy whenever they need it. They have two short naps and one longer one each day and I think that because they have had a dummy all their short lives they are used to them and the fact that they retain them during sleep means they are needing the comfort the dummy brings. Maybe I am lucky and the coming weeks will shake me out of their routine but we will see. Happy to have the dummy as a friend rather than a thumb!

I just wanted to add an update for anyone who comes across this thread hoping for answers. I have spent so much time reading sleep threads and often you never find out what helped in the end, so I wanted to take the time to give an update in the hopes that it helps someone in the future.

So, I cracked in the end, and took the dummy away. Two months of almost non stop 2 hour wake ups and I was done. First night, I braced myself for a very unhappy baby needing lots of comfort, but... she was fine! She whinged for six minutes and then just went to sleep! Since then she has gone to sleep happily, independently, and, crucially, quickly after night wakings and for her naps - which have also lengthened (I am often waking her up now!) so I am getting more of a break as well.

I think that it helped that she was already used to going to sleep with the dark room, white noise, sleep/nap routine, in her crib, away from me. So losing the dummy was not such a significant change as all the other sleep associations were still there. I think changing one thing at a time - it was a very gradual process, we started with her only sleeping on me or in my arms and needing feeding or movement to sleep - meant she has (finally!) learnt to sleep independently. It’s happened at a slower pace than I would have liked(!) but without too much distress or needing to try controlled crying etc. Having said that, I think I would have done it if I’d needed to. We both desperately needed better sleep.

Hopefully this update is helpful to some sleep deprived mother, desperately googling in the middle of the night! And I’m sure I’ll be back looking for more sleep advice soon enough when we hit the next bump in the road.

@Dillybear

I just wanted to add an update for anyone who comes across this thread hoping for answers. I have spent so much time reading sleep threads and often you never find out what helped in the end, so I wanted to take the time to give an update in the hopes that it helps someone in the future.

So, I cracked in the end, and took the dummy away. Two months of almost non stop 2 hour wake ups and I was done. First night, I braced myself for a very unhappy baby needing lots of comfort, but... she was fine! She whinged for six minutes and then just went to sleep! Since then she has gone to sleep happily, independently, and, crucially, quickly after night wakings and for her naps - which have also lengthened (I am often waking her up now!) so I am getting more of a break as well.

I think that it helped that she was already used to going to sleep with the dark room, white noise, sleep/nap routine, in her crib, away from me. So losing the dummy was not such a significant change as all the other sleep associations were still there. I think changing one thing at a time - it was a very gradual process, we started with her only sleeping on me or in my arms and needing feeding or movement to sleep - meant she has (finally!) learnt to sleep independently. It’s happened at a slower pace than I would have liked(!) but without too much distress or needing to try controlled crying etc. Having said that, I think I would have done it if I’d needed to. We both desperately needed better sleep.

Hopefully this update is helpful to some sleep deprived mother, desperately googling in the middle of the night! And I’m sure I’ll be back looking for more sleep advice soon enough when we hit the next bump in the road.

Hi thanks for this I’m still struggling with hourly wake ups and he’s now 6 months so I may try it , how old is your lo if that’s ok to ask?

@Complex1950

I’m sorry you’re still struggling. It was honestly like a miracle when I took it away. Although she did whinge for it (not a distressed cry, more grumpy - no tears) I was prepared to have to soothe her in other ways until she fell asleep. My plan was to do this in the crib as much as possible, but I had decided I would pick her up if she cried properly, but would ensure I put her down for sleep - so basically pick up put down. However, she whinged and I went in and comforted her, and then she calmed down and went to sleep after I’d left the room. She is about to be six months old, and she proved herself to be much more capable than I had given her credit for! She has ‘grown up’, so to speak, so much in the past couple of weeks I think it was a combination of her being ‘ready’, all the other sleep associations staying in place, and the fact that it was just one last hurdle towards independent sleep. I really hope it goes well for you.

[quote Dillybear]@Complex1950

I’m sorry you’re still struggling. It was honestly like a miracle when I took it away. Although she did whinge for it (not a distressed cry, more grumpy - no tears) I was prepared to have to soothe her in other ways until she fell asleep. My plan was to do this in the crib as much as possible, but I had decided I would pick her up if she cried properly, but would ensure I put her down for sleep - so basically pick up put down. However, she whinged and I went in and comforted her, and then she calmed down and went to sleep after I’d left the room. She is about to be six months old, and she proved herself to be much more capable than I had given her credit for! She has ‘grown up’, so to speak, so much in the past couple of weeks I think it was a combination of her being ‘ready’, all the other sleep associations staying in place, and the fact that it was just one last hurdle towards independent sleep. I really hope it goes well for you.[/quote]
Thank you x

@dillybear thank you so much for coming back to update!!

I have a 5 month old who has a dummy and I'm very conflicted on what to do about it. My elder child had a dummy and I was reading this thread thinking that with her, it did pan out exactly as @babysleepteacheruk said it would - she slept through at 6 months, which was actually before she was able to reinsert the dummy herself (having gone through a period where I was giving it back to her a million times a night). She was overall a better sleeper though than my current baby, I'm not convinced it would work out like that with this one.

I'm shocked and amazed that you were able to take the dummy away and your baby only cried for 6 minutes. I had assumed that there would be hours and hours of crying, which is why I've avoided it as I just don't think I could take it. Has your DD replaced it with any other method of soothing, does she suck her thumb instead now? Does she still wake during the night or does she sleep through now?

@sunlighthouse

She doesn’t seem to have added in a new way of soothing. She sometimes sucks on her thumb anyway but not a lot and not particularly before she goes to sleep. I knew she was trying to get to sleep when she was whingeing because she was turning her head from side to side and kicking her legs up and down, which she always seems to do as she’s going to sleep.

She isn’t sleeping through the night yet, unfortunately! She’s still waking for two feeds, almost exactly four hours apart. Before, she was waking much more frequently than that, though. I’ve also seen her on the monitor stirring in her sleep, and kicking her legs and turning her head and then just going back to sleep by herself. So when she wakes and calls out I know she needs me as she is able to just go back to sleep by herself. Now, when she wakes up I am feeding her, popping her back in the crib before she falls asleep on the boob, and she goes back to sleep on her own. The wake ups are taking around 15 minutes each in total. It’s not perfect but it’s so much better than it was. I hope you manage to make some progress with your little one!

Sorry, that came out wrong. Of course if she cries out she needs me in the night. I just meant that she doesn’t need me to help get back to sleep, so when she does call out I know it’s something else that she needs.