Giving Up Dummy

[Becky77]

OK so I keep reading that the best time to get rid of a dummy is 12 weeks as after that they for dependancy or something! My DD is now 13.5 weeks and uses a dummy to settle herself to sleep only. What I want to know is how long it'll take to wean her off it... How horrible it'll be and is it worth it seeing as she only uses it for sleeping? Oh and how do you settle a baby without forming some other settling dependancy ie rocking, singing, patting?

Thoughts please... Thanks

Well DD is finally out or her moses basket and into her cotbed... her naps yesterday were great but last night she woke herself at 11pm and 4am (still not bad I know) I think from shuffling all the way down the cot... God knows how she does it! I'm off out today to buy a cot divider to put and end to it

well, its day 2 with no dummy, but my lack of routine is probably not helping the situation. we woke up at 9.20 and she missed the morning nap and then cried for 40mins before conking out for the lunchtime nap. let's see how long she sleeps for.

yesterday, she also had a short lunchtime nap then no afternoon nap. i had my mums group over so couldn't really force her to sleep and do cry it out.
by bedtime she was knackered but happy and she went to sleep perfectly - no crying at all.

but i went out for a couple of hours with my friends (first time out!), planning to come home by about midnight (dh always does dream feed anyway) but she woke up at 10, wouldn't eat and was inconsolable for 2 hours until i got back!

so we had a crap night after that . . .

Oh no, sorry to hear you had a crap night... But well done for getting out! I haven't done it yet... Not sure why, but I just know I'd be worrying about her the whole time and wouldn't enjoy myself properly... So I've chickened out so far!

I hope she manages a decent lunch time nap

Becky Well done on the move to the cot.

T -well done so far!

Every time I go out, dd wakes up! She did it when my fil babysat a few wks ago. On friday night, I went out with a friend. I got back about 10.45pm and she was sitting on DH's knee watching ITNG!! She had woken at 10pm and would not go back to sleep. Little monkey. She seems to know when I am not there.

I was reluctant to go out. Don't mind if DH is looking after her but he works most evenings. I was reluctant to leave her with in laws then I thought that if she wakes and won't go back to sleep, they can put her in front of ITNG (she's addicted and we have tons on skyplus ) and she will be fine.

For the past 3 days, dd has now done just over an hr at lunch so it is getting better. I am still taking her out for 30 mins at 2.15pm then she has another 30 mins at 4.30pm (plus her morning nap).

Naps have been a bit rubbish today for some reason but night sleep a little better, although am having to do a night feed at around 3am now it seems, when we had got it out to 5ish a few weeks back!

Do think we need to ditch the dummy but just haven't got a plan of attack yet so being chicken & burying head in sand by carrying on as we are!

My LO is now in cot in his own room (no space in our room for it), but to be honest that's only coz he'd outgrown his moses basket....had about 2" to spare when I finally moved him there for night sleeps! Did it gradually with day naps in there first, but don't think he cared that he had been moved, it just means I have to actually get out of bed & walk into another room to do giving dummy for night wakes now!

that's why i haven't moved Elodie into her room yet! its through two rooms and the kitchen to her little room, so she only has day naps in there now. am aiming for moving at 6 months though.

she's been going down pretty well these days. right now she's wailing after 40mins for her lunchtime nap but i am waiting 10mins to see if she will settle herself again. i need a nap too!

she does miss the dummy though -i think the only reason she is going down well is because i have been giving her top-up feeds right before, so she gets sleepy doing all that sucking . . .

Hi mmoomum - I took ages to get round to getting rid of the dummy as I was terrified. Doing it was better than I had anticipated.

Hey gabster and Becky, how are you? DD was a monkey again last night. She was up most of the evening but luckily, slept from 12am -7.20am. She seems to play up every monday! I think she knows that if she cries enough, she will get to watch ITNG!

Hey Pudding - hows the lunchtime nap going?

Hi Becky - hope the move to cot is going OK

Things are pants here. DH has pneumonia and am being run ragged looking after DS, DH and dog. Has been 2 weeks and am exhausted as DS still pants at sleeping during the day and at night time, if DS sleeps OK, DH wakes me up with his coughing instead. This morning he had a coughing fit at 5.30 and woke DS too - and of course there was no way we could get him to go back to sleep then. So today we start the day having had about 4hrs sleep. Yeay!

Hey Gabster, sorry to hear you're having such a rough time of it... That does sound like a living nightmare! I hope your DH gets better soon so things get easier

@ pudding25 our LO loves TV too... I thought it was just her!

Well the move to the cot has been OK... Her morning nap has reduced to about 1 hour but thats not too bad... She seems to sleep a bit lighter at night but still only waking fully once for a feed... The real problem is that she is a complete wriggler... The first night I found her right down in the bottom corner with her legs scrunched up to her tummy... She seemed perfectly happy, no tears, but I was rather disturbed... so I've bought one of those cot dividers and last night was our first night using it. Twice I found her wriggled right down with her bum against it and her legs up and feet over it... Any suggestions for stopping this madness?

oh no, gabster. that sounds like a nightmare. hope they get better soon. 4 hours is soooo not enough.

giving up dummy went better that i expected, especially as it was in tandem with giving up rocking to sleep.

she now goes down really well in general. lunchtime nap is a little short but yesterday i tried GF's suggestion of "assisting them to sleep" through lunchtime - we got into bed together and slept the full 2.5 hours with some light wakings. apparently, if you do this, eventually it resets them to expect this much sleep. i guess you could also put them in a sling or something. anyway, it was good for me because i have a sore throat and headache so i got to chill too!

the only problem is she won't go down for dh. has to be me . . .

today though, i start mum and baby yoga at 12. why do things start at 12 - bad time for me! anyway, if she is asleep, will leave her in the closed courtyard provided (everyone leaves their kids out to sleep here in denmark!).

I know TJuice all the activites around here start during DDs nap time... So I'm going quietly insane here at home... At least I have Mumsnet for company though!

Well after a long run off good luck DD's naps are finally up the spout... She's down to 45 minutes in the morning, an hour at lunch time and 30 minutes in the afternoon... Surprisingly this hasn't had a negative impact on her sleep... Perhaps it's time to learn to be more flexible?

Hope Dh is feeling better gabster. Poor you.
Becky - is your DD in a sleeping bag? When we first moved DD into her cotbed she kept turning herself round 180 degrees during the night, sometimes waking herself up. She soon stopped. I think they are just getting used to having more space. Her naps seem ok. At her age she only needs a mx of 3 hrs per day. I find that as long as dd gets 2hrs over the course of the day she is ok.

TJuice - I used to do that but I used to take dd for a walk each day. Unfortunately, she woke up if I stopped.

Lunch naps are still the same here. She does about 45mins in her cot, has a break and is up for about 1hr, then I take her for another walk.

Hi all - Glad to report DH doing much better. Sadly has to go back to work next week (been fab having him at home) but at least he will be out of my way.

Sorry you are joining Pudding and me in the "pants at day naps" club Becky. I would not worry too much about the wierd positions your LO gets into mind, they all seem to do it. When DS was still in the crib, used to find him with his bum against the end and his legs right up in the air but a great big smile on his face!! You could try putting her feet to toe instead of using the divider and see if that is better/safer? Have you got her warm enough now?

Hey Pudding, I am sure you are doing the right thing with the naps. As long as she is getting enough sleep is the important thing (funny, find the same for me - 2hrs is the magic number). Everybody keeps telling me it gets much better on the nap front once they near the magic 12m stage and cut the morning nap. Then they sleep for longer and relibly at lunch - that's what I'm holding out for (fingers crossed).

Right - off to find chocolate

Hi all, I hope you don't mind me joining your conversation but I have been debating ditching the dummy for the last few weeks and have also been watching your thread which has given me the confidence and push to go ahead! I have finally taken the plunge and ditched the dummy. I am on my first day and it isn't going too badly, however, I wanted to check a few things with you and get your opinions. Since taking the dummy away, my baby (15 weeks) is constantly sucking his fingers. I have read so much conflicting information over dummy vs. fingers and now I am worried that it is going to be much harder to get him to give up the finger sucking. Will this ease off once he forgets about the dummy? To be honest, I would rather he sucked his fingers so that he can settle himself rather than me running in to pop the dummy back in.

The second question is that he hardly ever sleeps for longer than 30-45mins at a time during the day. I was trying to get him to go longer but this was partly being achieved with the dummy. This morning when I put him down for his morning nap, he went down with hardly any moaning. I just had to stroke his head for 5mins and he was gone (sucking on his fingers). However, he woke, as usual, after 30mins and so I got him up as I didn't want to upset him. For his second morning nap (yes, he sleeps after being awake for an hour!), he went down with no problems again and woke after 30mins. I tried settling him but he got himself into such a state that I had to give up and bring him downstairs as he was starting to make himself sick. He was then yawning and fidgeting 20mins later so I went for a walk and he fell asleep in the pushchair. Do you think I am better off just concentrating on ditching the dummy at the moment and then worry about getting him to sleep longer at a later stage? I am willing to accept that he doesn't need to sleep longer than 30-45mins at a time but he is so tired soon after waking that it makes me think he does need a longer sleep.

Anyway, wish me luck for the rest of the day! I am getting very nervous about tonight as he is such a good little sleeper - he has his last feed at 7:30pm and sleeps until 7:30am without waking or needing his dummy (he has it to go to sleep but then doesn't need it for the rest of the night) and I don't want to ruin this!

One last thing - will his dummy be completely forgotten about after 3 days?

@mom2ben - Welcome to the thread! My DD has been an avid finger sucker ever since ditching the dummy... I'm not worried about it... She'll grow out of it in time and it helps her to self settle. When your son wakes from his nap is he crying? Could you try waiting for a couple of minutes to see if he self settles? I find when my DD wakes crying after 45 minutes it usually means she'll resettle herself... If I hear coos and giggles it means she's not going back down! And yes I reckon the dummy will be a thing of the past after 3 days particularly as he has learnt to settle himself with his fingers

@ Gabster & Pudding - Yes perhaps I've been spoilt with her taking 3 hour plus worth of naps a day! Yes she is warm enough at night now I think but I'm still having to move her back up the cot twice a night! I would do the feet to bottom position but she has a cot bed so if she was all the way down that end I'd feel a bit too far away from her... Strange but true... She hasn't ended up with her feet over the divider again though so thats good... She just gets a bit scrunched up against it.

Oh and Good luck Mum2Ben - I forgot to add that at the end! I'm sure he'll be fine... once a good sleeper always a good sleeper... Well if you ignore the blips every other week

All that talk of dd and not sleeping for ore than 2.5 hrs a day -today she has had a ridiculous amount of daytimes sleep for her and now worrying she will wake at 5am! She had 45 ins this morning, 1.5 hrs in her cot ar 12pm (the most she has done in ages) then another 30 min out for a walk and then another 30 min afternoon nap. According to Gina Ford's bk, too much daytie asleep can lead to early morning waking. She counts daytie sleep as any sleep between 7-7. DD did not get up until 7.10am today and has been asleep since 6.45pm so that is even more sleep today! Fingers crossed.

Mum2Ben -welcome to the dumy ditchers. DD has sucked her fingers, thumb, toes, anything since giving up dummy! She sucks her fingers to go to sleep. hey, aybe I will regret it in 10 yrs time when I see the orthodontist bills but we are all getting sleep now!!! I sucked my thumb until I was about 12 (and started sucking it again recently ) and my teeth are fine. My sil sucked her finger as a kid and her teeth are ok but who knows...
I would stick to getting rid of the dummy at the moment. You can work on the naps once it is gone. It will all be forgotten about in 3 days. Good luck.

Thanks Becky and Pudding, today has actually been okay - he went down with no problems for his naps but only slept for about 30mins. But this isn't unusual for him as I said. The one thing that was different was that he woke up crying from almost all his naps but I think this was because he was still tired but couldn't self settle. He is now down for the night and he niggled for a bit about 45mins after going down (I left him to it as he didn't sound too upset) but all is quiet at the moment. Fingers crossed that he sleeps okay tonight. My husband has just pointed out that we may have chosen the wrong weekend to this on as the clocks are going back on Sunday! Whoops!

Dreading clocks going back!

If you think he is still tired after his naps tomorrow, can you stick him in the pram and go for a walk?

Hi mom2ben - you've come to the right thread! Would second the "dont worry about finger sucking", just feel lucky he found his fingers so quickly. My 38yr old friend still sucks her thumb and her teeth are beautiful. And yes, it will all be forgotten in 3 days at this age. Its when they are older you have a problem.

Becky, glad your LO seems more settled in the cot. And I totally understand the about her being too far away - I found myself looking where the bedside cot used to be last-night and wishing DS was still in it .

Pudding, hope tomorow is not an early wake-up but must say this happened to us a few a month or so ago, no early wake up - unfortunately no long term sleep change either - just a cold which required extra sleep for a few days. DS is back to his 1.5 to 2hrs a day now.

Unfortunately, at 8.5mo we have had to face facts that DS definitely seems to have forgotten how to self-settle for some reason, so we started more sleep training yesterday. Doing PUPD in the style of NCSS. Back pain is setting in but we have had results already. Only took 5mins to settle for lunch (back to normal at last) and 15mins this evening (had been taking 1/2 hour min for weeks). Hopefully means we have cracked it.

Cor this baby business is knackering so rewarding .

gabster - what is the advantage of pupd method over shushpat?
it is so knackering this whole thing! Elodie is 20 weeks now and I took a quick gander at the weaning threads and am overwhelmed! Do I start with purees or do BLW? Should I buy Annabel Karmel or just wing it? Where should I get a highchair from and what other paraphernalia so i need - bloody hell - whole new ballgame is about to begin.

She's going down pretty well at the moment, but probably jinxed myself. I have a cold right now so last night slept in the spare room. DH woke me up at 7am to feed her and I thought "Wa-hey - she's finally slept through from 7pm" but actually he feed her some EBM at 1am and didn't wake me. A sweetie but I was disappointed that she hadn't done the magic trick!

Mom2ben - for me, giving up dummy has helped with the quality and length of Elodie's sleeping as she is learning to self-settle if she wakes after 40mins or so. Not always but does help a bit. I noticed this week that if I leave it 10mins when she grizzles - she may go back down. I used to always rush in and try and resettle her which probably unsettled her even more, if you know what I mean.

Well, last night was okay - we had quite a few wakeups which is very strange as he doesn't have his dummy after it has fallen out after his last feed and normally sleeps straight through to 7ish, however, maybe he senses something is up! We managed to settle him if he was really crying and then left him to it when he was just grizzling. Unfortunately it meant that both my husband and I were exhausted this morning and so I very nearly gave in and got the dummy out when he started crying at the beginning of his morning nap. However, I didn't! He only slept for 30mins before screaming the house down so we got him up (if we leave him when he is like that, he just gets worse and worse and is then impossible to settle). About 45mins later he was clearly tired so we fed him (I know I shouldn't be encouraging him to rely on feeding to sleep) and then put him down. He is still up there (he's grizzled a few times but we've left him) and all is quiet. This would never ever have happened if he still had the dummy so I am now very much back on track!

Hi girls,

Thought I'd join the ditching dummy thread too

My boy is now 12 weeks & he's getting more & more addicted to his dummy. He currently is using it both day & night, and during the night it's really hard because he cries out insistently every time it falls out. This goes on throughout the night, but it especially happens between 7-11.

I really would like to get rid of the damn thing... but DP is very reluctant, as he feels it would involve lots of crying, which we would like to avoid ideally. Well I know one can't have it all So I wonder what's your advice on how to go about it?

Some more info on my situation is included in another post which I wrote- again on the sleep thread.

Speak soon!
Maria

evening all - sleep training is going well - but we gave ourselves the night off and took DS off in the buggy for a long walk with the dog (with a nice pm nap) to get to the pub for dinner. Figured we want to put him down later tonight so may as well make it a night out too! Twas lovely .

TJuice - not sure if PUPD is better, just case of what works for you. We probably do both, as pick up DS/put him on shoulder and pat until calm, then place in bed (or rather touch on bed and pick straight back up as wailing by time head touches matress) and repeat until finally rests in bed calm BUT not asleep, and hopefully let him finish the job and go off to sleepy land . It works for us. Have tried sushing and patting him without picking him up but he just stays hitting my hand/arm. But be warned first session lasted 45m (and gave up) with no sleep, but after than have done max 15m before success. Your DH sounds like a sweetie.

Hey mom2ben - great that you have had success already. Stick with it. If your LO slept so badly overnight, then he probably started the day overtired (we get this one), hence the 30m morning sleep but you had the sense to get him down again as soon as he showed signs and reaped the benefit, a nice long nap. Well done! Hope he does better tonight.

Maria - hi. Dumping dummy does not have to involve crying - have you read the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantly? She has a slow but absolute no cry solution to dumping dummy. Or alternatively, I think Becky will be back in a bit and she did it without crying. Unfortunately, I just wasn't aware of the options when I did it and did CC. Mind you, it was over soon enough and I was angry enough to do it at the time, IYKWIM.