Forum home Archived Birth Clubs My baby was born in May 2011

dummies??

Hi ladies



hope we are all getting on well with our lo's!



Just wanted to get your opinions on giving lo a dummy. My gorgeous girl is good as gold all day but after her tea time feed she is quite unsettled and will look for another feed within as little as an hour, and this continues after her evening feed and she won't settle to sleep at night. She constantly tries to get her thumb in her mouth and sucks at her fingers, and DH wants to give her a dummy as he doesn't want her sucking her thumb. His reasoning is that we can take a dummy away but we can't take her thumb away. DH thinks that she is looking for the comfort of something to suck rather than being hungry, so a dummy would help.



I have always been against them, but then again i've never had a baby of my own before! What i want to know is that if we did decide to give her one, do you think it is possible to just keep it to something she gets at night as part of her settling routine? Or once i give her one is that it, and she will need it all the time?



Any help or advice would be really appreciated!



xxx

Replies

  • Hi hun



    It sounds like Grace is cluster feeding in the evenings which is actually a good thing because it means she's starting to learn the difference betweeen night and day so is feeding more in the evenings to ty to fill up more so she can go longer stretches at night. Most babies do this, its not unusual for them to have a few hours in the evening where they are unsettled and just want to feed.

    I wouldn't recommend giving a dummy if your breastfeeding until she's 4 weeks old because it can cause them to get nipple confusion and mess up your milk supply, are your bottle or breast feeding? Sorry I can't remember!



    Its entireley up to you though...all of mine have had a dummy, Abby and Theo had it from a week or so old but Lily was breastfed for longer and wouldn't take one until I'd stopped breastfeeding, I guess because she got used to the plasticy sensation when she started on bottles.



    xx
  • oooh i've not heard of cluster feeding! So should i feed her more in the evening? She is bottle fed, and gets 120mls/4oz every 4hrs - she wakes for it like she sets an alarm!! Although she will sleep longer at night once we've managed to get her settled!



    I will go google it, thanks!



    xx
  • I think Harry is trying to cluster feed as from his 7pm feed he is constantly unsettled and wanting to feed but if I feed him he then wont take a decent feed at 11 and wakes up around 2am. If I feed him up until 8.30 (no later) and then I use a dummy to force him to wait until 11 he takes a better feed then and sleeps until 5ish. So dont think its working for him!



    Nothing wrong with a dummy though; it apparently lowers risk of cot death if baby is given it to settle to sleep (though they dont know why!) and your DH is right about it being easier to take away than a thumb. We introduced one to Daniel to make him go longer between feeds and also because he had started sucking at his thumb. I've seen countless parents struggle to stop thumb sucking, but you can take a dummy away and after a while of tantrums its over with (though with Daniel we took it away and he never seemed to notice! lol). xxx
  • I would feed her as much as she likes in the evenings, I do with Freddy which means I'm pinned to the sofa for about 3 hours every evening which also means I can't cook tea so Rob has to...what a shame :lol:

    But cluster feeding is a good thing, it takes babies a while to sort their body clocks out and cluster feeding is a good sign their learning night time is for sleeping so in theory should start sleeping for longer periods of time.

    xx
  • I love dummies! My DD had one from three weeks which was the earliest she would take it. It really helped her to settle. It's a completely natural reflex that babies suck to settle.



    I must admit that i let her have it too much of the day when she was a baby so trying to reduce use when she got older was tricky. She still has it but only when sleeping which she accepts. I'll be trying the dummy fairy when she's three I think.



    I'm already lined up with three different types of dummy (all newborn but different shape teats, etc) for our next LO but will restrict to sleep more than i did last time. My friend gave her very colicy baby a dummy at three weeks and then took it away at 6 months so as not to make her dependent on it, so it helped with the colicy weeks and she doesn't really miss it now she's older. You could aim at that if you're worried about her having it long term.



  • I gave my dd a dummy at 2 weeks old & it was great for getting her to sleep, I thought like your hubby HOWEVER at 10 weeks old she found her thumb & from that point she point blank refused a dummy no matter how many different ones I tried! It had it's benefits though, she began sleeping thru the night as she wasn't 'losing' her dummy in the night & if she did wake she resettled herself with her thumb with no need for me to even wake up plus I never have to remember to take her thumb out with me.



    She's 2 now & it's not like it's stuck in her mouth permanently. She tends to suck it when anxious, tired or upset or when she's sitting quietly watching tv or something.
  • i cant find a dummy that sophie doesnt gag on!! image
  • hi I give my ds a dummy as I think he can use a dummy for comfort and me for food!



    I think its good to use a dummy so he knows the difference



    so far he only uses it at night but that might change



    image
  • This one has a dummy already. I didn't know they could interfer with bf and he is feeding fantastically well. As he's a section bang hd has terrible tummy gas he's still getting rid of and tad dummy really gels sooth with the pain from that when nothing else helps. R x
  • G/C This was a huge dilema for us too, we were adament that we didn't want to use a dummy. I think in the end its not the dummy thats the problem but use of a dummy which you can control. For us we didn't use one in the end, although our main concern about not using one is going against the cot death recommendations. Freya has always cluster fed in the evenings and sometimes would feed every half an hour for 3 or more hours, but she has always been a good night sleeper, and now at 12 weeks sleeps from 9pm until 7am, and feeds for 1 1/2-2 hours before bed. So prehaps your LO is hungry, a friend of mine bottle feeds in the evening (similar age) and he has 12-13oz before his bed and is also sleeping through, they were very shocked when after finishing his first 7oz bottle he nearly drained the second.



    Friends that use dummys have all had different experiences, one spat hers out as soon as she found her thumb anyway, another does use it just for bed, and anothers little one is 15months and she has it all day, you can't hear her talking as she has the dummy in there. I guess really its all to do with how you use it.
  • we use a dummy, josh only tends to keep it in until hes nodded off then he will spit it out. helps give my boobs a break as it soemtimes holds him off feeding, he's down to feeding every 1 n half - 2 hours, so if im in the middle of sortin lunch/dinner or doing something with jack, dummy will give me an extra half hour.



    jack had a dummy aswell, he used to comfort feed so when we gave him dummy he calmed down with feeds and got alot more regular with it.



    xxx
  • Tbh I wouldn't mind giving Owen a dummy as he defo comfort feeds but until I'm confident about the bf and his jaundice has cleared up I'm going to just keep feeding him. Theo had a dummy but he stopped using it around 5-6 months. I think you just have to look out for clues they're ready to give it up and act on it, Theo started spitting it out when previously it had been a comfort to him so I stopped offering it. I also agree that cluster feeding in the evening is no bad thing. Owen has just fed at 6pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm and each time had quite a good feed. Unfortunately he still only goes 2-3 hours at night but here's hoping it'll start getting longer!!
  • Ps 10pm feeding again!!
Sign In or Register to comment.