Ferber Method with dummy and night feeding

[Tidders92]

Hi All,
Hoping someone can help!
6 month olds sleep is just getting worse! He can settle but with his dummy. Last night he went to bed at 8 (after bedtime routine of bath, massage and bottle) then woke at 9:30. I put him dummy back in and patted and he went back off. Then woke at 11:30 so gave a bottle and be went back off. Then work at 3:30 and had a bottle and went back off to sleep. Then woke at 6:30, I put his dummy back in and he went back until 7:30.
I know it’s normal for wake ups still at this age but I’m really struggling with the lack of sleep or time to myself. I go to bed when he does as it takes me ages to drop to sleep.
Did anyone use the Ferber Method in the same situation? Pleaseee send help haha.

At 6 months old he should be able to replace his own dummy. You can encourage it by putting it in his hand and guiding his hand to his mouth so he learns. It shouldn’t be a barrier to Ferber if that’s the route you want to go down. Put 10 dummies in the cot, either use the glow in the dark ones or get a very dim nightlight, and I’d recommend that regardless of the sleep training because whilst they can replace them themselves at 6MO, they are rubbish at finding them, something to do with them still learning object permanence and they don’t necessarily know to look for it if they can’t immediately see it! Then Ferber is based on regular check ins so you can replace the dummies that inevitably get lobbed out of the cot then. There’s stuff in the Ferber book about night feeds but I can’t remember what it says, maybe someone else can. You probably need weaning to be more established before the night feeds ease off but at 6MO hopefully that isn’t far off.

Thank You for your response. He can definitely put it in his mouth if I hand it to him, it’s just the finding it himself like you said.
He’s already weaning (has been since 5 months) so well on his way! X

@Tidders92 did you try Ferber method in the end? Just curious as we’re trying with our LO atm and interested to hear other people’s experiences x

Hiya, we did kind of. The first night was awful. But after that was so. He sleeps much better now but sometimes still requires me to pop his dummy back in. If he’s poorly sleep is understandably awful but other wise it’s usually just one wake up for bottle but rarely.

@Tidders92 oh thats great, sounds like hes taken to it well. So is he calm and happy when you put him down in the cot for bedtime
now? I’m only on day 3 and my LO is still very unhappy about being put down in the cot and not being rocked to sleep 😭

Yes, but he does get worked up sometimes. Yesterday was actually one of the days he took a while to settle for his nap but he was very overtired. If he doesn’t settle there’s usually a reason.