Night wakings after dummy taken away

[AJsMom]

I wonder if you can give us some advise on our 5 1/2 month old.

He has had a dummy since he was a couple of weeks old and it has been very effective at getting him to calm down and go to sleep. At about 4 months old he started waking up probably about 5-6 times during the night having lost his dummy.  Most of the time we just popped it back in his mouth and he went back to sleep straight away. After a few weeks of this we decided that neither he or us were getting good quality sleep so it was time the dummy went.

We tried the gradual withdrawal method but didn't see any real improvement. (we probably weren't doing it right) 
We decided to take away the dummy completely about 8 days ago. It wasn't too bad, we just shooshed him and stroked his face
and he went to sleep after a while. For the first couple of days I took him out in the pram or car for his day time naps.
After three days of this he slept thru the night (hurrah!). Then it all went wrong. The next night he woke up crying and would only go back to sleep with me holding him.  (which he never does, he would never normally want to sleep in my arms). He has been chomping on everything and sometimes looks like he has red checks so we assumed he was teething ( - although he isn't dribbling that much and there are no sign of any teeth.) Anyway for the last few nights he has been waking up 4-5 times. Sometimes we can settle him by stroking him and shooshing him within about 10-15 minutes but other times he'll be wide awake talking to himself.
If we leave him eventually he'll get frustrated and start crying - then we sooth him and he'll carry on talking to himself! At the moment he doesn't seem particularly distressed when waking during the night.

During the day he has also been much more whingy and irritable and doesn't want to be put down. He is tired and does get overtired easily but we're used to him being like that (he has never napped well). Its also now more difficult to get him to nap during the day. Sometimes we have to resort to taking him out in the car as even the pram won't settle him.

Now we're wondering whether he is actually teething or whether he still wants his dummy or a combination of both. (We did actually give him back the dummy during last night after he had been awake for about an hour. It did settle him straight away.)
The other concern is that the stroking and shooshing has replaced the dummy and now he needs us to get back to sleep.
It just seems like he hasn't learned to settle himself without the dummy. 

Also - We're wondering if he is actually teething, should we let him have the dummy back just to settle him for the moment or would it be a bit unfair to give it back to him for a while and then have to take it away again...? 

As for routine, it really depends on how early he gets up. He's sort of on 3hr EASY.

Sleep :

He normally gets up between 6-7

He'll either have 30-40 minutes naps at about :
9:00, 11:30 , 3:00
or at   
8/8:30 , 11:00, 1:30 , 4.00
 
He rarely gets past the 45 minute mark and only gets about 2 - 2:30 hrs sleep during the day.

He is usually in bed at 6:30 as he is normally tired by 6pm.

Food :

I feed him formula at roughly these times :

7 - 9:30 - 12:30 - 3:30 - 6:15 - 10 (df)

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[Colin Macs Mom]

I think that your primary problem is the naps. He really needs to be getting more than 30 - 40 min at a time, and more than 2.5 hrs a day. Have you tried extending his naps with either PU/PD or wake to sleep? I think he's in a cycle of overtiredness and that's why he's having trouble sleeping and staying asleep.

I don't know how much the pacifier has to do with this, as I haven't gotten rid of it yet myself.    I would suggest checking out the props board too, there have been tons of posts there about pacis.

[AJsMom]

I think you're right about him being overtirred. Last night he was wide awake for an hour and a half at 4am  - and I know it wasn't because he had had too much sleep.

I have been trying to extend his naps for the last couple of months as he is tired half the time and always has been. I sort of half heartedly tried wake-to-sleep but i think i'll give it another try today. I've tried PU/PD during the night but it seemed to make him cry more. I've never tried it for his daytime naps so I give that a try if all else fails.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Unfortunately there is no quick fix with a lo - everything takes time. I would give PU/PD at least a week but probably more before you know if it's working or not. And wake to sleep as well. And remember that you need to exude confidence while doing it. So keep at it and let me know how things are going. If you see no improvement with extending techniques we can try and figure something else out. 

[AJsMom]

Just thought I'd give an update on how its going....

I started off trying to use w2s for his daytime naps.  Didn't really work well on the first nap - he just woke up after 30 mins and was wide awake (only to be yawning 10 mins later!). The lunch time nap extended for 1hr 15 mins. I'm not sure making him stir at 20 mins made much difference but I sat with him while he stirred at 30 mins with my hand on his chest. He stirred on and off for 10-15 minutes and then went back to sleep. For the afternoon nap we are normally out so he sleeps in the pram or car.
The next day was a bit of a waste as his swimming lesson is in the middle of everything.
The next day - still no joy with the morning nap but i extended his lunchtime nap til 1hr 45 mins (hurrah!).
I was getting very optimistic by this stage however today was not so successful. He woke up after 35 mins from his lunchtime nap all bright eyed and smilie only to be rubbing his eyes 5 minutes later. I tried to do the nap routine again and put him back down. He did go to sleep but woke up after about 5-10 mins and was wide awake again.

As far as night wakings are concerned, i think there has been some improvement.
The first night was not much different.
The second night he woke up a few times (not as many as usual) and then was wide awake at 4. We left him to babble for a bit before he started crying. We tried the pat/shoosh - he calmed down but didn't want to sleep. Eventually he started crying again and i tried pu/pd. He wasn't crying too hard when I started but was screaming by the 30th time. I held him for a few minutes with him screaming then he noticed the light under the door (it was already morning by then) he instantly calmed down. Then I put him back down, he whinged a bit and went to sleep. Not sure the pu/pd worked as it was supposed to, but I guessed it tired him out instead! He then slept till 6.45 - I shooshed him a bit more and he slept til 7:30!
Last night he still woke up 4 or 5 times but at least he wasn't wide awake at 4/5am. I think this is definately due to him not being so overtirred.

We've given him back his dummy as it makes it sooooo much easier to get him to settle on his own at bedtime and naptime. I think last night most of the wakings were due to him losing his dummy and not so much because he was tired.

However I'm not holding out too much hope for tonight - He only had 3 * 30 minute naps today. He wouldn't go down for another nap so we opted for putting him to bed early instead. He's woken up twice already and only been in bed 1hr 30 mins. On the positive side - he did go to sleep without his dummy!

[Colin Macs Mom]

Sounds like you are making some progress, good for you   

[AJsMom]

We've had some real progress over the last 4 or 5 days. Our lo has either slept thru til about 5:30 or just woken up once!!! (Don't really fancy starting the day before 6m so we'll probably have to see how that goes!).

I'm not 100% sure its due to extending the naps but we have been having some success with that. We are usually able to extend one of the naps - usually by catching him just as he is stirring at 30 minute and stroking his head for a bit. He'll then sleep for 1 hr 15 - 1hr 45 minutes. He still doesn't get much more than 2hr30 minutes sleep during the day but i think its better quality sleep. I was wondering whether eventually he'll be able to take longer naps without our intervention or whether we'll always have to help him back to sleep after 30 minutes?

The other thing is that we gave him his dummy back and he doesn't wake up anymore when he loses it  . So it seems he is just sleeping better in general. Not sure if this is partly due to him getting to 6 months old or whether giving him solids are a factor. We now keep a tighter eye on how much sleep he has during the day as well as the previous night. We put him to bed a bit earlier if he hasn't had enough sleep so he doesn't get in to a cycle of overtiredness again.

Thanks for your help.

[Colin Macs Mom]

You know, props can be funny things.... We took the paci/dummy away from Colin cold turkey months ago, and for about three days he didn't even miss it. But on that fourth day, it was like, where did that thing go..... where.... WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! So then we reintroduced it in the crib only, and that's the way it's been ever since. And he doesn't wake when he loses it and doesn't object at all when we take it away once he gets up. It's a good compromise.