Will this work? Please say it will!

[mistletoeandjuan]

Things have been getting progressively worse with my 7month old DD's sleep - she needs rocking to sleep (which I don't mind once or twice in the night) but she's been waking up every hour unable to get back to sleep unless I rock her.

She also can't go to sleep without her dummy but keeps spitting it out so I have to keep putting it back in.

The last few nights I've tried putting her in bed with us but she still kept waking up every hour needing her dummy and a cuddle.

She's not hungry or thirsty - she pushes the bottle away and cries if I try that so last night (at midnight) I decided that I needed to take action.

I refuse to let her cry it out - I don't want her to think she's been abandoned so this was my plan:

Put her down awake, if she cries, give her the dummy, if she keeps crying, pick her up until she stops crying, put her down, repeat ad infinitum!

It took one and a half hours. She finally went to sleep and slept until 7.30am. No crying, just a lot of tossing and turning, eye rubbing and dummy spitting.

Do you think it's worth persevering with this plan. It nearly killed me at the time - I was so tired but I'm willing to do it again and again if it means she might learn to fall asleep and stay asleep by herself.

What do you reckon?

Yes absolutely. If you start on these sort of things then you must keep going, otherwise it's too confusing for her.

The fact that she then slept until 0730 suggests that you're going to be onto a winner in the end.

I agree; it is hard work and knackering for a few days but worth it in the end. Keep going. Don't go back once you've started or you will confuse her. She'll sleep better for it eventually and so will you

Thanks. I'll keep going then. I was really pleased that she slept so long after but I thought that might just have been because she was so tired after being awake for one and a half hours in the night!

Well. Things were much better last night. 3 dummy replacements between 8 pm and 7 am and no need to pick her up at all. I'll keep going like this for a bit and then attempt to sort out the dummy.
At the moment she's asleep in the car and I'm hoping we get home before the snow gets any worse!

We had a couple of nights like this, so we went cold turkey on the dummy. We did everything but give the dummy, so we rocked, bounced, cuddled, etc. Had a couple of dodgy nights, but now DD only has the dummy in the car seat or in the day when she's poorly.

It will work but you must keep consistent. And be prepared for what is called a test night. This will probably happen a few nights from now when you think it is sorted and suddenly your baby will revert back to before but if you keep doing what you are doing for that test night you should have it sorted. Good luck.

Galena- I'm wondering whether to go cold turkey on the dummy but I can't see how it would work without a lot of crying. Have to admit it drives me mad when she keeps spitting the bloody thing out and then crying for it
we're home finally and I thought she'd settled after coming out of her car seat but she's just had a big bottle of milk and now I'm sitting by her cot repeating the exercise. Seems to be a lot quicker tonight. Fingers crossed!

I didn't think it'd work either, but I found quite vigorous bouncing in my arms, while 'shushing' quite loudly in her ear when she was screaming served to quieten her down a bit. As she got quieter, so did my shushes, and the bouncing and jiggling got less vigorous. However, as she revved up again it got louder. It only took about an hour to get her to sleep the first night. And because I knew exactly why I was doing it, I didn't feel so frustrated.

(Having said that, it's not foolproof - and last night she was awake from 5:30 and the only way I could get any more time in bed was to cuddle her to sleep and then let her sleep in my arms. Ho hum)