Ditching the dummy at 5 months..... need help!!!

Hi!!

So our LO is 5 months old and very dependent on a dummy to get to sleep... this wasn't a problem until we got through the 4 month sleep regression... since then, I'm finding we are waking multiple times to have dummy replaced l... basically ay the end of every sleep cycle... we often end up co-sleeping as it's the only way to get longer stretches of sleep out of him...
So im wanting to ditch the dummy so he can learn to self smooth and join up his sleep cycles. Has anyone else ditched the dummy yet... if so, how did you approach it, and were you successful??
We have had two attempts at going cold turkey so far... the first attempt we made it 24hrs without it, and the second time we got to 40 hrs.... thinking I want to give it one more good shot, so hit me with your stories of both success and what happened if you've kept the dummy... (I'm hoping it gets better!!!)

We are also in leap 5 at the moment so thinking I'll wait until that's finished to try again...

Thank you!!!!

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Hey, we were in the same situation with you. So we went cold turkey with the dummy a week ago. We haven't looked back. He now sleeps so much better and only occasionally starts to stir and he either goes back to sleep independently or we give him a gentle shushing and patting and he goes back. It has made our daytime naps much longer also!

@Hannah that sounds like the dream and where I want us to get to... how did it go when you went cold turkey??? Did you cry much?? As soon as I put our LO down he starts crying and works himself up so much... im not sure how I get past it .

Same thing happened to us! We went cold turkey a few weeks ago. It was rough for a few days but then he started learning how to self soothe. Now we put him down for naps/bedtime and he rarely cries just lies awake for 5-10 mins then goes to sleep on his own!

@Emma was he ever hysterical at night time when you went cold turkey??? We've tried twice... I could only get him to sleep by rocking to sleep in my arms and then transferring him to his crib... and then if he woke and needed resettling, it took an age and we often be hysterical...
I know it'll be worth it, but its just so hard when they get sooo upset without it...

Yeah it was hard as he was so used to using the dummy to settle. I think the first couple nights it was over an hour of screaming trying to get him to sleep it was awful. I don’t have him fall asleep in my arms and then transfer as that has just never worked for us he always woke up. So we’ve always put him in the crib first and then settled him from there. Darkness, white noise and rocking the crib a little helped. Sometimes just holding his hand/talking or singing to keep him calm helped. At first we had to stay with him until he fell asleep but now we’re able to leave him awake. First few days were awful but then it got better! I couldn’t cope constantly being woken during the night to put his dummy, and now he’s only up once for a feed and straight back to sleep 🥳

the first night he cried a little we have him about a min or less trying to shush and pat him if he was crying then if that didn't work picked him up cuddled and sang to him then once he was calm laid him back in the cot and shushed and patted him to sleep and repeated if he cried again. Things that helped us by having in place first though was white noise, Ewan the sheep and really really good black out blinds so its super dark in the bedroom

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