Oh you poor thing. You must be exhausted! No wonder you are getting so frustrated and upset about it.

There is no reason in the world why you should automatically know how to settle your baby. It is a learned skill, and if this is your first, you haven't learned it yet. That's all there is. And given that it's different with every baby, and that some babies are harder than others to settle down anyway, it really is nothing wrong that you are doing in your efforts. Just a tough situation to deal with. *hugs*.

At 6 weeks old, he's young to be really able to self-settle. I think many babies can't do that at all at this stage. He's also probably too young to have a routine, so it's no wonder it hasn't worked out when you tried to get him into a routine.

I don't think it's a bad thing for a baby to have a dummy a lot at this stage. It won't harm his speaking or anything yet, so no worries about that kind of thing. It seems like the problem is him waking when it falls out, and I can understand you must be exhausted having to wake all the time to put it back in.

One thing I've noticed about DD's dummies is that some of them stay in better than others. We have a couple that are shaped so the guard part moulds around her face a little, and those ones stay in much better than the ones with a round guard shape that pulls back from her mouth. I think the ones that stay in better are a tommee tippee brand, but not certain, because I didn't buy them and I didn't keep the packaging. We also noticed that dummies with smaller teats fall out more easily, which makes sense, as there is less for her to hang onto in her mouth. Anyway, it might be worth trying some different dummy shapes and sizes to see if different ones stay in better.

I wonder whether you are waiting a little too long before putting your son back to sleep after he wakes in the morning or after a nap. At nearly 9 weeks old, I rarely get an hour awake out of my daughter, and that's including a feed, change, etc. That's not unusual. If we miss the time when she's tired but not overtired, it then does take much longer to get her to sleep again. I wonder whether you might do better trying to just feed him, change him, play with him for 5 minutes or less if he shows any tired signs, and then put him down again to sleep.

(I assume you know about tired signs: yawning, jerky movements, rubbing eyes, arching back, crying).

Anyway, I don't know any more ideas to offer, sorry, but I'm sure others here will have some great ideas for you to try. Good luck with it!