I am my baby's dummy - HELP!

[Wayne's World]

Last week my 15 week old son was going through a growth spurt and eating more frequently - so much so that my EASY schedule became EA(E)SY just to accomodate.  It was only a couple of days, but because he was eating before sleeping, he got used to sucking on me while falling asleep.  Now, he wants to suck on me in order to fall asleep.  My husband has tried to step in now to settle him, but it turned into him not settling and then staying awake too long, getting overtired and you can imagine the crying that followed that. 

We have tried 7 different dummies and he rejects all of them.  I was a late starter with the EASY method (at 8 weeks), so I was not incorporating a dummy earlier often enough for him to be used to them.  He used to take them, but now he refuses.  He ends up gagging and has spit up his food a couple of times from the gagging. 

Because of this, it's upsetting his EASY routine and he is now not sleeping as efficiently and by extension not eating efficiently and is back to waking during the night.  Has anyone else had this issue and found a successful solution? 

[DavidsMum]

I had a similar problem with DS at around that age.
I think you are doing the right thing getting DH to try and settle him.

In the end I just had to go through a day of persistance and lots of screaming at nap/sleep time and the next day he was back on track to self settling.

DS never took the dummy though. One thing I have found with DD (though she is only 4 wks so maybe more easily fooled) is that if I start with the breast and then quickly swap to the dummy she falls for it and goes to sleep with the dummy.

Happy Dummy seems to be the prefered brand amongst mums I know, not sure where you are living but this is available in Australia.

[Jocasta]

Have you tried pt/sh with lo in the crib?  The patting has to be rhythmic, and gentle and the Shsh bit needs to be loud and constant. 

During GS (for future reference ), it's best to try and get in there before they are sleepy enough to fall asleep on the breast - we recommend a EAEAS - so they get another short A period before sleeping so as not to interrupt their ability to self sooth - the second A time could just be a change of nappy etc...  Just something to wake them up enough so that they go down fully awake and don't associate sleeping with feeding.

Hindsight is very cruel

How did you teach your lo to sleep independently in the first place?  It's likely that you'll have to try this again to break the feed to sleep cycle.

Hugs honey

[Wayne's World]

I am new at the message posts, so I am not sure what all the letters mean - LO, DP, etc...

We were fortunate to have a baby that was very good at settling himself until recently.  He is the textbook type, so he quickly fell asleep when he was put in bed.  I did try the sh-pat method and it worked wonderfully! 

The problem we have been having is that in the last few weeks he has discovered his hands and loves to suck on them.  The problem is that he sucks on them so hard that he gags himself and ends up spitting up.  He did this once in his sleep, so I have been putting mittens on him which has solved the gagging problem, but has not solved his craving to suck on something.  Since he won't accept a dummy, we aren't sure how to get him to kick his hand-sucking habit.  This is why I think my breast became his new dummy.  Have you had this experience?

[clh]

{{hugs}} Tracy.  I'm afraid I don't have much experience with the hand sucking bit.  BUT I can help with the acronyms. 

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=51772.0

[Jocasta]

Getting a lo to take a dummy can be a game of perseverence but one that almost always pays off.  It cost us a fortune in different types of dummy and a lot of "tapping" on the middle bit of the dummy to get DD2 to accept one but once she did, we haven't looked back - some people don't like dummies and you may feel that as you've gotten this far without one, you'd rather not go down this route but for me, I wouldn't know how to parent without one lol!  Tapping the dummy helps, as does pp's suggestion of quickly swapping your nipple for a dummy...

[Wayne's World]

Thanks for the link to the acronyms clh!  I kept wondering how many people had named their babies DD!   

[Wayne's World]

To Jocasta -

I would love to be persistent with the dummy if it weren't for the fact that he keeps gagging himself and then spitting up his food.  I don't know why his gag reflex is so strong.  I can get him to take a dummy during his dream feed though - but by morning it has been spit out and once he was gagging as he woke up and I was afraid he would spit up again.  I wish I had known about the Baby Whisperer when he was born so I could have been implementing this sooner.