Happy Nap Trap Day to all who celebrate. Sally opens Dummies Anonymous and brings Bec, our resident team dummy member, front and centre. Bec can count the number of times she's ditched a dummy in less than two hands over twelve years. She explains why. Families have usually invested a lot of time in the dummy, and it's a handy tool for stretching feeds, getting through dinner time or a flight to New Zealand.
Sally shares how her own view has shifted. She's far more inclined to keep the dummy from eight months, when most babies can replace it on their own, and at 14 months it's a hard no. For younger babies whose families aren't really a dummy family, she'll drop it with a crystal clear plan. Both agree on realistic expectations: keeping it may mean popping it back in once or twice overnight, and that's normal.
Then comes the case. A five and a half month old came to Camp Snooze after previous sleep training. He had very short naps, short breastfeeds, lengthy resettling and almost a day's worth of calories overnight. The dummy helped stretch those 25 minute overnight feeds while we shifted calories into the day. Mum, who'd been told she had a slow feeder, cried tears of happiness when full double-sided feeds arrived. We protected the 7am, 11, 3 and bedtime feeds without doing anything cold turkey.
The nights stayed inconsistent though. After a process of elimination covering temperature, togs, feeds and wake windows, the only variable left was the dummy. Sally was bringing the bins in when Bec said it. The dummy's gotta go. We kept it for naps because the family was travelling, dropped it overnight and the baby barely looked back.
We wrap up on why sleep isn't linear, why we work over two weeks and why we organise sleep before anything else. Camp Snooze spots for 2026 are open, so jump in quick.
