I think I need to ditch the dummy... I am scared to though... is there any other way?

[2point4kids]

DS2 is 8 months old. He stopped having a night feed just before 6 months old and hasnt needed milk in the night since then.
He does however have a dummy.
I can count on the fingers of one hand (actually on one or two fingers!) how many nights he has slept all night without waking up at all.
He wakes up anywhere from 3 or 4 times to about 10 times on a bad night.
He is very easily settled. Just pop the dummy in and he's back asleep.

The amount of times he wakes in a night are becoming more frequent these days and we have more bad nights than good nights. He usually sleeps solid from about midnight to 4am but either side of that wakes up every hour or half hour.

I'm pretty sure he has become reliant on the dummy to settle and therefore the dummy needs to go so that he can sleep all night on his own.

Im so nervous of giving up the dummy though!!
He goes to sleep at night and at naps like an angel. I just lay him in his cot or the pram, pop the dummy in and off he goes. Its like a signal.
What will I do without the dummy? He doesnt like being cuddled to sleep, but if I put him in bed with no dummy he will yell.
I have never left him to cry before

What about that hour before bed when he is tired and a bit grumpy but too early for bed and he plays happily with the dummy, but will grumble for an hour without it?

What about in the mornings when he has the dummy to stop him yelling while I make his bottle do he doesnt wake up DS1?

What if I take away the dummy and he STILL wakes up in the night but then I have nothing to settle him with?

Is there any way to help him sleep at night without taking away the dummy?

If I DO need to be brave and lose the dummy, then how do I do it the easiest way (for both of us!)???

Please help???

bump

i wouldn't give it up, personally. I'd just go with the night wakings and eventually he'll stop doing it.

I would recommend the "no cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. She seems to have a very gentle and sensible approach (but not a quick fix like certain other "experts") imo she has some wise ideas about helping dcs who are "addicted" (my word) to a dummy - like my 14 month old is.

What I like about her also is that she is mother to 4 children, who all had different sleep patterns, she also knows her stuff about b/f. She isn't just some maternity nurse or whatever that doesn't understand.

Personally I could not let my dd2 cry, imo she is the sort of child that would just scream for hours and really not understand that I was being "cruel to be kind"

p.s. What I have just started doing with my dd is the "pull off" technique. Basically as the baby is just about to drop off take the dummy out. (she explains this really well in the book). Night one she slept from 7pm til 4am. 2nd night 7pm til 1am, but then I did the pull out technique again again she slept til 6am ish which is fab for her.

She also suggests that you focus on the night first, then often the naps sort themselves out. Her approach is great in that if you "mess up" for a night or two (for example if you are too knackered to bother) she doesn't give you all that rubbish about how you are now doomed. Imo she is realistic as she has been there many times with her own dcs.

The book sounds good. I will look up a copy of that asap!

I never had this problem with DS1. He was a sleep through the night by 9 weeks baby and has slept a good 12 hour stretch ever since.
Ds2 is very different!!

Is the book aimed mostly at bf'd babies?

I know this is probably a stupid question but can he not find and put the dummy back in himself? Can you not leave tons of them strewn all over the cot so he can find them? That is what we did.

No I don't think it is aimed a b/f babies particularly (although afaik her own dcs were bf). She has a specific section for children/babies who either use a dummy/bottle/breast feed to get to sleep. The technique is the same really.

"I never had this problem with ds1" -lol (in a sympathetic manner). We never had this problem with dd1 either. She was one of those magical babies who "self settled/self soothed". Even now it is fairly common for her to sleep 12-13 hours! We were very lucky with dd1 though.

ceebee I am not the op but we have tried leaving extra dummies in the cot. It worked for a bit, then from about the age of a year, because (imo) she had never learned to sleep through, she started fancying milk again in the early hours.

Your tip may well be worth a try for the op though.

He cant put the dummy back in himself.
He's just about getting to the stage when he is awake and sitting up of being able to pick up a dummy and get it in his mouth (after a couple of attempts at putting it in handle first! lol) but when he wakes at night he just lies there, eyes tight shut and mouth open yelling until the dummy gets put in by me!
I'd have to leave him to cry a far while to wake up enough to open his eyes and look for a dummy and then pop it in. By then the whole house would be awake and DS2 would be miserable at having been left to cry!

2point4 - also we have found that she thrashes about (having some sort of panic that the dummy has left her mouth for a few seconds) and sometimes on the monitor we hear all the spare dummies clatter through the bars of the cot and onto the floor.

DH is lovely - he goes and washes them in hot water. I have been known to give one a wipe on my nightie and stick it back in. Desperate times - sure you understand?

Right, have just ordered that book! Thanks for the recommendation.
Hope it arrives before the weekend as Dh is all gung ho and says if DS doesnt stop waking at night then the dummies are going this weekend! Its me that will have to look after a misery guts with no dummy during the days though while he is at work!

LOL at wipe on the nightie. I'd never do anything like that

Good luck with the book. Get a secret stash if your dh is likely to try and get rid of them (or better still leave him all weekend with the baby and no dummies and he may just change his mind)

He's only eight months, I would leave him to it.

leave him to cry?
or continue to give him the dummy several times a night?