Dummy becoming a problem at night

[sunshine_sieben]

Hi,
My DD has juts turned 2 and has a dummy for sleep times. I don't mind that normally. I have talked to a few doctors and a dentist and they all seemed to agree that the dummy phobia is a little exaggerated. As long as she doesn't ahve it all day, she's fine. Of course I don't want her to still use a dummy at 18 years of age, but I'm sure we'll find a way to stop it before that (like giving it to Santa or even the new baby).

My problem at the moment is that it is causing sleep problems now (as opposed to solving them as it has done in the past). DD has been sleeping through the night for about 4 or 5 months. But then she started climbing out of her cot, so we moved her to a big bed a few weeks ago. Initially, she did well in there. But for the last couple of weeks she has been waking up to 5 times a night because she has lost her dummy and can't find it in the big bed (with doona and stuff). I am up multiple times a night anyway as I'm 36 weeks pregnant and have to go to the toilet a milion times. But it still gets to me that I have to go into her room all the time and find her dummy. The minute she has it, she lies back down and goes straight back to sleep. I even have one of those glow in the dark dummies. But they only glow in the first 2 hours or so beforee "losing charge".
I am also worried aboutt what's gonna happen once the baby is here. I am planning to co-sleep and I don't want to constantly wake the baby because DD1 wants her dummy. And if I'm BFing, I won't be ablee to get up either.
DH doesn't hear DD when she wakes. Or at least he pretends not to hear.

What should I do??? Any ideas? Should I jsut ignore her crying for a night and see if she finds her dummy after a while? but I'd be risking her waking up completely...
Should I try and take the dummy out of the equation completely? But I worry that with all the upheaval of a new baby, adding the loss of the dummy would be too much for her. Should I just ride it out and hope it's a phase that will be over soon?

Thanks for your input.
Sasa
xx

[Jacki]

I just use a plastic dummy chain to attach dummy to DS pyjamas/grobag.
Works well for us.

[Arimeh]

Can you put a container next to her bed with spares in it, and all she has to do is reach in and grab another one without disturbing you?

[AliBaby]

I like both those ideas! very good thinking girls

[sunshine_sieben]

You're making me feel sooooo stupid, girls.
Of course, these ideas make all the sense in the world.
Why couldn't I think of that???

[Olive]

we went cold turkey with DD and her thumb at the start of the year she was 2yrs 2 months adn i was 34 weeks pregnant! it was tough-ish the first few nights but it wasnt as bad as i thought it would bem glad we did i though!

[oleary]

Ladies,

My little girl is almost 6 months old and has started to constantly wake up (every 1-2 hours sometimes every 3-4 hours) since she was 3.5 months. When the weather changed.

I am told that its the dummy doing this. Have you had similar problems? I would like to take the dummy of her but she gets hysterical. What is the age when they can start finding it themselves and putting it back in themselves?

Waiting for that day!!!!

[sunshine_sieben]

Mmmmmmmmmmm, My DD only started using the dummy at that age. But, I find that at that age so many developments happen (increased mobility, the start of crawling etc.) that they will wake themselves up either way.
In my personal opinion, dummies are demonised these days. They are blamed for everything these days. I personally don't believe all of the hype although of course there are a some things we need to watch out for. Like that they don't interfere with the establishmentof BFing...

My DD, although not using the dummy at that age also woke up more frequently. She also started crawling at that age. I was told that it was caused by BFing and that i should wean her to make her sleep through. I did no such thing and the situation improved. By 9 months she started the waking up every hour or 2 thing again. She also started walking at that age... After a couple of months she started waking only once for a quick feed. And this remained until she self-weaned at 19 months. She slept through from then on until we moved her into the big bed...
Now, she sleeps through maybe 70% of the time. Some nights she wakes up once, other she might wake up 3 times.

My point is, there will always be periods where she will sleep better and periods where she will wake more frequently. Try not to focus on it too much. It won't be forever. I know how tiiring it can get, though.

I don't know how old DD was when she started putting the dummy in by herself. But I guess you have a couple more months to go. But she might also learn to re-settle hrself without the dummy...

Oh, and I always found that the change of season brougght about wakefulness and early rising, too.

Hope it improves for you.
Sasa

[oleary]

sasa thanks.

I agree. My mum told us we all had dummies and I have so many girlfriends whose kids are similar age and have no dummy problems during the night. Hoping it does get better. Was thinking of going to a sleep clinic for help but have heard all they do is let the baby cry itself to sleep and I hate that.

She is very alert and moving around alot so hopefully things settle down again. Even if its for a little while.