My LO is 23 weeks and i am really struggling with her sleeping at night. We have established a good sleeping routine that consists of playing, bath, story feed then bed. She sleeps fine until 1 ish and then we can be up and down around 5-6 times a night. We have tried waking her for a 11am dream feed but this didn't make her sleep anymore. We trien feeding her at 1 ish when she woke but she stills wakes up. Now i have resorted to just putting the dimmy in the mouth. It seems that this is all she wants. Should I wean he off it?
She only has about 19fl oz of milk ( not a huge fan) but loves her food!
Please help i am desparate for some sleep!!

X:cry:

Sweetness, i hated the idea of a dummy when i was pregnant. Dirty things! But when harry was born they were a godsend.

Babies have a natural sucking instinct which calms them down. So why not a dummy?

Also, when you get her for a dream feed, its just that - while they're still asleep.

I personally would relax about the dummy. You can wean her off it later when she's a little older and able to settle herself better.

Its true the earlier you do it the easier it is to wean, but Harry's had his dummy since he was 2 months and from about 6ish months i just reduced the time he could have it and gave him lots of cuddles instead.

Now at 18months, he has it at night when he goes to sleep and occassionally if he's fighting sleep in the day. Soon as they start playing, they should be distracted enough not to need a dummy.

Xx

this is my dirty secret

my boys are 2and half and still have a dummy but only in bed. they were like your lo wouldnt settle gave them a dummy and they slept soundly. Still the case now, they are good sleepers and i cant see how a clean dummy at night can cause any problems, they dont ever talk with it in etc. my hv thinks its dreadful but i have happy and refreshed lo's because they have such a good nights sleep, so id say not to worry

xxDBxx

Funnily enough I just posted about this in baby.

We use a dummy for sleep and sometimes in pram. never when playing etc. But I'm considering trying to ditch it now.

However I certainly don't see anything wrong with using it when they are little to help with sleep. If dummy encourages them to sleep longer they will getused to sleeping for long stretches and eventually do it without dummy.

I used ot be up every few hrs doing a dummy plug to get him back to sleep. Now I take it out after he's asleep and he doesn't need it again unless he wakes early hours of morning. For example, woke at 5amthis morn. Gurgled/cried for a minute. Found his dummy and went back to sleep.

If it helps you get a bit more sleep then I don't see the harm. S x