Self settling - am I making progress, or fooling myself? (Dummy)

[crazychemist]

Hi there,

VERY LONG post - only ready below if you are interested in details. Short version is: if you use a dummy instead of feeding to sleep, do you see any sleep improvement at all, or will that not happen until they can put it back in on their own?

I have 6 month old twins (5 months by adjusted age, which is probably more relevant in terms of how it fitted with sleep regression). They were either fed or rocked to sleep when tiny, and when the dreaded 4 month sleep regression hit we had the classic cat naps during the day, frequent waking at night (30 mins after going to sleep, then a minimum of every 2 hours after that, usually every 1 hour after 4am) and they were basically always fed to sleep.

I’m a very gently gently parent with sleep. I have an older child, who I happily fed to sleep and coslept with. She had a medical condition so required continuous monitoring while asleep until it was corrected when she was just over 2 (she’s 4 now and totally fine, and sleeps very well). I can’t really bear the thought of leaving a child to cry alone, and frankly even if I could I suspect if I did that with one of the twins I would end up with all 3 kids awake and a total night time disaster! So I’m not really open to any techniques with much crying, it just wouldn’t work for us.

I was perfectly happy to feed the boys lots at night initially - in some ways i was glad to be getting milk into them every 2 hours over night as they were tiny preemies to start with. Now they are big chunky babies and I’d like to get a bit more sleep!

I know that self-settling is considered to be a pretty important first step, and that feeding to sleep can get in the way of this for some babies, and seemed to be doing so for my boys. So for the last 4 days I have tried to get their last feed in at least 10 minutes before sleep (planning on making this longer gradually if necessary) and settle them in their cots with shushing and patting. BUT I have cheated - I have given them a dummy so they wouldn’t cry and disturb each other while they are learning to fall asleep without feeding.

I think this has been a good step..... the second night we had no wakings before midnight, so that’s a 5 hour stretch! We also have had slightly longer naps (45-50 mins instead of 30) and today (day 4) I was able to resettle them so they did 1hr30 for their lunch nap, which we haven’t managed since the 4 month regression. Tonight though I’ve already had to go back in twice to replace the dummy for one twin - one of them spits it out as soon as he’s asleep, and doesn’t seem to need it replacing every time, but the other keeps it in while sleeping and wakes up within half an hour if it falls out.

They are also still feeding quite frequently in the night. I assume this is because they are used to it and this will take some patient adjustment. My plan to start with is to feed them if it has been ~4 hours since last feed (which is the longest they ever go between feeds during the day, and twice as long as they are used to doing at night) or if they won’t settle with dummy and patting.

Soooooo...... is this progress? I realise I’ve replaced one sleep crutch with another, but am I making any progress towards independent sleep or totally fooling myself? If you used a dummy, did you still have 2 hourly wakings through the night? What steps would you take from here towards independence?

Yes that's amazing progress - it's only been 4 days!

Even when you don't have other habits to break, it takes a good 3 weeks for new habits to become ingrained. With the fact that your babies have to get used to not being fed and rocked to sleep, you've made brilliant progress so far. It's a good sign things will improve much further - be consistent though, it's really important.

As for one twin waking more easily - that twin isn't getting into a deep sleep and probably needs more help to get there. The dummy should fall out. Dummy is for going from awake to a light sleep and then light sleep to deep sleep - this process should take around 10 minutes. Once in a deep sleep, all muscles in the body relax and this includes mouth/jaw muscles. So the muscles holding the dummy in the mouth go slack and the dummy falls. It is meant to, it has done it's job.

The time from baby being awake to going into a deep sleep, baby will suck on the dummy continuously. Into the light sleep the amount of sucking decreases. There are still occasional sucks and this keeps the dummy in, but not continual sucking. Then sucking stops once in a deep sleep and dummy drops.

Your twin seems stuck in that light sleep. So you need to help him a bit more to get into the deep sleep, so the dummy drops unnoticed. Maybe focus more attention on this twin when patting - keep the patting going a bit longer for this twin. Also watch this boy's daytime sleep, because being over tired makes it harder to settle into a deeper sleep.

I'm in a similar position to you OP, only with just one baby 

@FATEdestiny does this mean they rely on you to replace the dummy every sleep cycle until they're able to find it and pop it back in themselves?

Hi there @FATEdestiny. That’s helpful to know that new habits take about 3 weeks. I wasn’t really sure what to expect!

The one who is holding onto the dummy is definitely having more trouble - I had to pop it back in for him soooo many times last night! He’s always been more tired during the day than the other twin, so that makes sense if he’s not actually sleeping as deeply. He’s so smiley first thing in the morning, but with a twin to compare him to it’s so obvious that he just gets less and less happy as the day goes on, poor thing.

Doing my best to be consistent, but struggling with what to do when they wake - the first 2 times the constant-sucker woke he went straight back when I popped his dummy in, but from midnight on I had to feed him back to sleep every time. The other twin didn’t wake till midnight, but then I ended up feeding him at midnight, 2, 4, 6.... so a good stretch at the beginning but then not so good. He wasn’t at all interested in the dummy after he spat it out, it just lay next to him for the rest of the night.

I ended up feeding him at midnight, 2, 4, 6...

That will be feeding for comfort, not calories. It suggests you don't have an adequate alternate way to comfort baby back to sleep that isn't feeding.

It's a massive amount of calories overnight - how many feeds is baby having through the day? What sort of proportion of baby's feeds/calories are being taken in during the night compared to the day. By 6 months the majority of calories could be given during the day. They could all be given during the day, and so no night feeds. But if there are some night calories, it should be a small proportion of the calories over 24 hours.

does this mean they rely on you to replace the dummy every sleep cycle until they're able to find it and pop it back in themselves

No theresstardustinmyhead. The idea is you train baby not to wake at all between sleep cycles. The end-point of high quality sleep is that baby has cycles of deep sleep > light sleep > deep sleep > light sleep > deep sleep > light sleep and so on...

You get the situation (like OP) where baby isn't getting enough restorative deep sleep over 24 hours (ie including daytime naps as well as night sleep). Light sleep is restless sleep - it's a phase when if anything can wake baby up, it will.

So help is needed to get baby having more deep sleep. This is nothing to do with dummy. It might be overtiredness (from daytime naps - this is the usual reason). It might be baby not going to sleep where they stay asleep (the change in location causes distress). It might be hunger, pain, discomfort, illness.

Once baby is getting ample high quality deep sleep, and also remembering that linking sleep cycles is developmental so has to be learnt over time, then the dummy is only needed to get baby from being awake into a light sleep. Then sucking slows and stops as baby goes into a deep sleep, and drops. Then between sleep cycles baby is in a light sleep and not waking up, so dummy not needed to "get back to sleep" because getting back to sleep isn't required, since baby doesn't wake.

Thank you @FATEdestiny that's so interesting / helpful x

Hi @FATEdestiny yes, I’m sure it’s mostly habit. They are both fed on demand during the day but are in the habit of frequent feeding at night. I was hoping that as he hadn’t woken till midnight and then had a really big feed that he would be able to go 4 hours till the next feed, but he wasn’t keen on this idea! They both went down really well for their lunch nap today (other 2 naps were on the go from necessity) and both managed 2 hours! I did have to resettle both (1 at 45 minutes and the other at 1h15) but I can hardly believe we’re back into long nap territory already! Fingers crossed that they keep managing it, they were so much happier and smilier than they have been for the last 6 weeks on 20-30 minute naps.

Honestly, I was certain doing this without crying was going to take months. I know there’s still a long way to go in terms of reducing night feeds, but I’m so encouraged to see that they aren’t at all distressed by the change.

That’s interesting about the dummy. I’d assumed that it would have to be replaced for the majority of sleep cycles until they could put it back in themselves. I assumed that it would be something I’d have to wean them off in a few months time once I’ve eliminated (or at least reduced) night feeds.

Honestly, I was certain doing this without crying was going to take months

That's the joy of the dummy.

I try hard on Mumsnet to break down the internal conflict many mums have over dummies for this reason. There's always that slight middle class snobbishness of "I don't want ma bit of plastic in my baby's mouth", but these same mums are often the ones who seek gentle, no crying, kind ways to get independent sleep. I'm always championing the dummy on this forum to challenge this, for the very reason that it is the best possible no-crying way to independent sleep.

Regarding dummy re-inserts - these are only needed to get an awake baby back to sleep. If you have an awake baby, then using a dummy or not won't change that you will still have to get your awake baby back to sleep and that's likely to be harder without a dummy. The challenge is figuiring out and fixing why baby is waking up in the light sleep phase rather than going back to a deep sleep - it's not the dummy since the dummy doesn't serve that purpose.

Great advice from @FATEdestiny here. I will only add that I bought a sleep-safe (short and plastic) dummy ribbon for DD and helped her practice finding and reinserting it - she'd got it by about 8 months and then even if something DID properly wake her in the night she would just pop it back in herself. Also worked in the mornings - she'd wake up, put it back in and go back to sleep for another hour or so. It was transformative for her sleep.