Is Your Baby Waking Because They’ve Lost Their Dummy?

Dee's Dummy Chain - thousands of dummies that she's taken from her clients who's little ones now sleep soundly without them.

If you were at the baby show I attended last week, you probably noticed that there were a LOT of dummies about. In fact, I would say at least half of the babies I met had one. And that’s really not surprising. Dummies can be brilliant. They can calm a baby who desperately wants to suck, give mum a much-needed break from being attached to a breast for what feels like 23 hours a day, and sometimes they are genuinely needed for medical reasons.

So I want to make something very clear before I go any further: this is not a blog about how dummies are bad. I am absolutely not here to make parents feel guilty for using one. There are lots of reasons why babies have dummies, and lots of families where a dummy works perfectly well.

But there are also a LOT of babies whose sleep is being disrupted by their dummy.

And if you are currently getting up five, ten, fifteen times a night to put a dummy back into your baby's mouth, this blog is probably for you!

When the dummy becomes part of the problem...

For some babies, the dummy is simply part of how they go to sleep. They have it, they suck, they settle and off they go. They might even sleep through the night without needing any help.

But for other babies, something slightly different happens.

Your baby goes to bed with their dummy. They suck on it, which is lovely and calming. The sucking helps them to relax, their body becomes more settled and they start to drift off.

Then, as they relax, their sucking slows down.

The dummy starts to fall out.

They notice.

They suck again.

They relax.

The dummy starts to fall out.

They notice.

They suck again.

And round and round we go.

It can actually take some babies much longer to get properly into deep sleep because they are repeatedly coming slightly back up into a more alert state to suck again.

Eventually, they fall properly asleep. You breathe a huge sigh of relief and think, "Thank God for that."

Until 45 minutes later when they naturally move into a lighter stage of sleep, realise their dummy isn't there and start shouting for you.

And now you're up again.

This is one of the things I look at when I'm working with a baby who wakes frequently. We don't just look at how often they're waking. We look at why they're waking and what they need in order to get back to sleep.

Because sometimes the answer is, "They're hungry."

Sometimes it's, "They're uncomfortable."

Sometimes it's, "They're genuinely struggling with something."

And sometimes it's simply, "The thing they needed to fall asleep isn't there anymore."

But what about self-soothing?

We often talk about babies "self-soothing" with a dummy, and I understand why. Your baby is upset, you give them the dummy and they calm down. It certainly looks like the dummy has helped them regulate themselves. But babies don't actually learn emotional regulation by themselves - the dummy is doing it for them.

They learn to regulate through us.

A baby gets upset and their parent responds. A baby cries and someone comes close. A baby becomes overwhelmed and someone helps them feel safe. Over and over and over again, they experience big feelings alongside a calm, responsive adult.

That's how they gradually develop their own ability to regulate.

And this is one of the reasons I am quite passionate about giving babies opportunities to experience their emotions rather than feeling that every cry has to be stopped immediately.

Because crying isn't always distress.

Sometimes crying is frustration.

Sometimes it's anger.

Sometimes it's protest.

Sometimes it's, "I really don't like this change you've just made, Mum!"

And sometimes it is genuine distress and your baby absolutely does need you.

Our job isn't to make sure our babies never cry. That's impossible anyway! Our job is to learn to understand what their crying is communicating and respond appropriately.

And that is a very different thing.

So why do I usually remove dummies when I work with babies?

When I work with a baby whose dummy is causing repeated night waking, I will usually recommend removing it. But I don't mean taking it away and leaving the baby to cry until they eventually give up. That isn't my approach at all.

If a baby has been using a dummy to settle for months, sometimes for every sleep and every little bit of upset, we can't just remove it and expect them to magically know what to do instead.

They need support.

They need connection.

They need reassurance.

They need a parent who can tolerate their frustration and stay emotionally available while they work out a new way of settling.

And yes, there will be crying. Because if you have always given your baby a dummy when they're tired, upset, frustrated or trying to fall asleep, and suddenly you don't, they are probably going to have something to say about it! And that's okay.

The important bit is that they aren't crying alone.

I'm not asking parents to ignore their baby. I'm asking them to stay close, respond, comfort, reassure and allow their baby the space to experience a feeling without immediately needing to make that feeling disappear. That is a really important distinction.

When we remove the dummy in this way, we are not taking away our baby's ability to regulate. We are actually giving them more opportunities to learn that they can feel something difficult, have someone alongside them, and eventually come back to calm.

That's emotional regulation.

When I do this with a family in person, there is a little ritual that I love. I ask the parents to bring me all of their dummies and we put them onto my dummy chain. Every single one. No sneaky emergency dummy hiding in the changing bag! It can feel like quite a big moment for parents because, suddenly, the thing they've relied on to settle their baby is no longer available. But I actually love seeing that chain grow because it represents a decision to do something differently. It also means there is no temptation at 2am to think, "Sod it, I'll just give them the dummy!" The dummy chain comes home with me, and we get to work on helping the baby discover that they can settle, sleep and feel safe without it.

And before anyone thinks I'm anti-dummy...

I really am not!

My own daughter had a dummy from when she was tiny, and there was a very good reason for it.

She was 8 weeks premature and, when she was just three weeks old, she was readmitted to hospital with bronchiolitis and ended up back on the high dependency ward. She was being tube fed, and in that situation the dummy had a very important purpose.

Sometimes a dummy is recommended for medical reasons. Sometimes you've got a baby who is just ridiculously sucky and wants to be on the breast constantly. And Mum is thinking, "I love you very much, but I would quite like to detach myself from you and go to the toilet on my own!" Sometimes a dummy is simply what gets everybody through a particularly difficult period. And sometimes the reason is more complicated.

Sometimes we give the dummy because we can't bear our baby's crying.

And this is the bit I think we need to talk about more.

What does your baby's crying bring up in you?

For some parents, hearing their baby cry triggers an enormous emotional response.

Their baby cries and immediately their whole body goes into panic.

"Something is wrong."

"I need to fix this."

"My baby shouldn't be this upset."

"I'm a terrible mother if I can't make them stop crying."

So the dummy goes straight back in.

The crying stops.

Mum feels calmer.

Baby feels calmer.

Everyone breathes again.

Until the dummy falls out.

And sometimes that reaction isn't actually about the baby at all.

Becoming a parent can bring up so much of our own childhood. How we were responded to when we cried. Whether our emotions were welcomed or shut down. Whether we felt safe to be angry, sad, frustrated or scared. What we learned about what happens when we have needs. We bring all of that with us into parenting.

So sometimes, when I'm working with a family, we have to look not just at what the baby is doing, but at what is happening for Mum when the baby cries. Because if every cry feels unbearable, it becomes very difficult to give your baby the opportunity to experience frustration or upset without immediately trying to stop it. And I'm not saying this to blame anyone. Quite the opposite.

Understanding why we respond in a particular way can be incredibly freeing.

So, should you get rid of the dummy?

Probably.

If your baby sleeps happily with their dummy and everyone is getting plenty of sleep, you may not have a problem that needs fixing.

But if your baby is waking repeatedly because their dummy has fallen out, and you are spending your nights crawling around in the dark trying to find it, putting it back in and wondering how on earth you're going to function tomorrow, then it might be worth looking at whether the dummy has become part of the problem.

And if you decide it's time to remove it, you don't have to do it by leaving your baby to cry alone.

There is another way.

The dummy can be removed gently, with lots of support and connection, while giving your baby opportunities to learn that they can settle without it.

The key is understanding that removing the dummy isn't really the whole job. The job is helping your baby find another way to feel safe, settled and ready for sleep. And that's why I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to baby sleep.

I've been doing this for 17 years and have worked with more than 3,000 families, and one thing I know for certain is that sleep is never just about sleep.

It's about the baby.

It's about Mum.

It's about the relationship between them.

It's about what Mum is feeling at 3am when her baby cries.

It's about what the baby has learned to expect when they feel tired or overwhelmed.

And it's about finding a way forward that supports both of you.

So if you're reading this at 3am because you've just put the dummy back in for the ninth time tonight, please know that you're not doing anything wrong. And your baby isn't doing anything wrong either. You may simply have reached the point where something that was once incredibly helpful has stopped being quite so helpful.

And yes, you can change it.

Gently. Responsively. And without leaving your baby to cry alone.

If your baby's dummy is causing frequent night waking, or you're not sure whether the dummy is actually part of your sleep problem, get in touch. We can look at what's happening for your baby, what's happening for you, and work out what will actually help your family get some sleep again.