My 8 month old ds has been waking at 6:00 am for about 4 weeks now. Generally he will lay and play in his crib for 20-30 minutes and then starts to cry... and I go back in and give him his soother and most of the time get another 20-30 minutes of sleep (or he's just really quiet!!)
I've debated with myself about the whole soother issue since day one... and I don't love him having the soother, but we only use it in his crib or on long car rides, and he dosen't wake up at night looking for it, he pretty much uses it just to fall asleep. I understand it could turn into more of a dependancy thing, and in that case I would think more about weaning him off the soother.
HOWEVER, I just read Tracy's 'BW for Toddlers' and she recommended getting rid of it around 6 months... or it's harder to take it away. I honestly don't want to have to deal with finding another way to 'soothe' him to sleep... if this works, why change it?? And we NEED it to drive anywhere, our drive to the grandparents place is 4 hours and we'd drive ourselves off the road on purpose if we had to listen to crying (screaming) for that long!!
Any opinions on if I'm setting myself up for future failure? Also, if I keep going in, soothing him in the a.m., should he eventually sleep himself until 7:00 am? I also use it at naptime when he wakes up too early... dosen't happen too often but it does, and again, I'd be hard pressed to find another way to get him back to sleep.