What am I doing wrong - sleeping with a dummy

[Ajahd]

I've read up on the fourth trimester and I know my boy is only little at 4 weeks old so I'm not expecting routine or a pattern at the moment but my boy is just getting himself so overtired these days and I want to know what I can do to help him. He's really not a good sleeper and hasn't been since he was born really.

We started him on a dummy fairly early, he went straight to the neonatal unit after birth and stayed there for 10 days. He's fine now, and no lasting complications but we started with dummies earlier than planned to help him get through getting poked and prodded multiple times a day.

I now feel like I'm in a never ending cycle. I've finally worked out how to rock him to sleep. He goes down with a dummy but anything between 5-30 minutes later, he spits the dummy out and this wakes him up. If I give him the dummy straight away the same thing happens again not long after and this just repeats for hours.

I've tried rocking him to sleep without it and while sometimes he will drift off without it, it's like he realises some point down the line that he doesn't have it and wakes up crying.

I've tried putting him down drowsy, with and without the dummy and again it just doesn't last.

There are obviously occasions where he does manage to sleep, obviously, but I can't work out what the difference is, and how to put that into practice for his naps and bedtime.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on what I can do, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Also, just to add, I swaddle him for all naps and at bedtime. Although he had two long naps during the day (2 hour and a 1. 5 hour one after another with a feed in the middle) and I didn't swaddle him for these naps. They felt like a fluke as he just seemed tired out if nowhere and able to stay asleep by himself.

Is he spitting it out after a sleep cycle?

I’m onto my second toddler and sling/pushing to sleep and cosleeping are the only sleep tips I have. Hopefully someone else will be along soon.

Ds2 was the same which was a shock after ds1 was the perfect baby in terms of sleep. I think I tried everything and in the end resorted to sleeping next to him (firstly on our bed with him in his sleepyhead then I went on a mattress in the floor in his room) so that when The dummy came out and he woke up I just popped it back in, occasionally had to get him out to rock him, and we both went back to sleep for a few minutes. It was painful but eventually the timing between wake times got more then he got old enough to find the dummy himself. He now has 9 dummies scattered around his cot as he still wakes a couple of times in the night now and I’ll be damned if I’m getting up the night for him any more!

Sorry I’m really not the best example!

My LO is 4 months and I was the same. I thought she actually needed it more than she does and popped it in her mouth overnight at the smallest whimper. After letting her whimper and shuffle a few time’s she self settled and went back to sleep, try it he might surprise you!

He's my first (and likely only!!) so I feel like I just have no idea what I'm doing! Whenever I feel like I'm getting the hang of things, he suddenly decides he doesn't like to be soothed like that.

I've tried a sling and the pram, with the pram he will wake up the second we stop and he will rarely fall asleep in the sling anymore, he prefers to screaming my face when cosied up together!!

I worry a lot about cosleeping. Ive always been a wriggly 'thrasher' while sleeping. Since he came along I don't as much, but I'm really scared about rolling over while cosleeping so I want to avoid it as much as possible.

I like the sound of the 9 dummies, how long is it before babies are able to pop their dummy back in 😂

@sweetpea1989 I think you might be right. Although I've tried it out to see what happens and he screams and goes so red in the face that I give in and give it back to him.

He's lucky he's cute.

We said that! As soon as you feel that you’re working them out the goal posts change. He’s still only so young and he’s got so much time to change his habits.

We found it gradually got easier the older she got then 4 month regression hit and we had a week or so of going backwards, that’s when it drove me to my wits end with the dummy going back in, so now I let her fall asleep with it but won’t replace over night and she is totally fine with it, really surprised me I thought I’d have a nightmare.

Ps have you seen those rocket rockers that go on the pram to jiggle it slightly when you’re stationary? I’ve not got one as mine hates the pram but I’ve heard they are good.

For daytime naps instead of rocking to sleep you ciukf do the nap in a bouncy chair instead. This removes the need to put baby down after rocking- they can be bounced to sleep and stay there.

Re dummy- they are meant to fall out of baby's mouth when entering a deep sleep (when muscles slacken, inc jaw muscles). If this is waking him then he's not quite in a deep sleep yet. But once he is, let the dummy come out.