Dummies and sleep

[Keema]

Help! my first child was a dream baby, slept through from an early age and could settle himself to sleep if he woke up. He also sucked his thumb which meant he wasn't dependent on me or my husband to put it back in again.
My second son is a different story. I resisted giving him a dummy but gave in as all he wanted to do at night was breastfeed continuously to go to sleep. The dummy worked but now at nearly 6 months old he still has and needs it to go to sleep and is waking up a lot a night. Sometimes the dummy will send him back to sleep if we put it in other times it's a bottle of milk. Other times he'll go to sleep without his dummy. He's so inconsistent, but my husband and I are knackered and can't work out why he wakes up so much at night. Should we throw the dummy away? stop giving him milk at night? (he's on solids now)try Tracy HOgg's PUPD theory? What? Please help!

If he is drinking milk in the middle of the night is he getting enough through the day ? - do you think he needs more solids?

is he after comfort or is he needing milk?

FYI Ds had a dummy for sleep until 18 months and then one day just didn't want it anymore no tantrums whatsoever.

I found the dummy started to disturbed our baby's sleep so weaned her of it at 3 months... I would recommend it but I think you may find it quite a bit harder than we did at that age. Good luck with it

He will down 7oz at about 11pm and then I'm mean and give him about 3oz if he wakes up around 3am! But without it he will not settle. I think he's getting enough in the day. He has two ice cubes of food three times a day and four 7oz bottles of milk during waking up and bedtime and 7pm but them still wants more in the night. Maybe he's just a pig! Maybe we were spoilt with our first child and this is what babies do. Whatever it is I need to get to the bottom of why he wakes up at night. Either milk, dummy, or just doesn't know how to settle himself. It maybe a process of elimination.
Thanks for your thoughts. More welcome.

I would try and give him some more cubes at mealtimes.

i would also get rid of the dummy. They are great for about 3mths and then they can cause sleep problems.

I would get rid of the dummy and try to give him gradually less in his 3am bottle.

Thanks for the advice. One more quick question (!) would it be wrong to just give him the dummy at times in the day when he wants to chill but not for sleep times? I just know that sometimes he just wants his dummy to chill out not because he wants to go to sleep.

hhhmm this might confuse him for DS once it went it went for good.