Who you calling a dummy?

I never thought it would work. Actually, originally I never wanted it to work. The use of a dummy in my eyes has always been obscene. I've hated it so much. Babies being pushed in prams by chavvy mums with a dummy shoved in their mouths to keep them quiet. I've never liked them.

But since having my own baby I've changed my mind slightly and I found myself a few months ago in Boots eyeing up the dummies, in my defence, having read that they can reduce incidents of cot deaths. We reluctantly bought some, tried them, they worked for about a day and since then they've been sitting in the cupboard.

I am now shattered with night time feeds, trying to keep Tilly asleep at night. Rita has suggested I give Tilly a bottle of hungrier babies formula milk to keep her fuller for longer, that and perhaps some baby rice. I've (against my better judgement) decided to go back to Gina Ford's routine to see if that will work too. I'm not going in totally gun-ho like I have in the past and will try a slightly softer version of the strict (no kids) Gina F's. I took her upstairs for her morning sleep. I've noticed that at night if I am very tired and bring Tilly back into bed with me, if I pretend to be asleep she falls asleep so I put her in the middle of our big bed and lay down beside her. I lay there very still with my eyes almost closed to trick her into sleep, she was fidgeting a lot. Then I suddenly remembered that Heather had said that Max sleeps with a dummy as he is soothed by the sucking. When I thought about it, Tilly likes is to suck herself to sleep, so I suppose it makes sense. So I rushed downstairs and washed one in hot water, went back upstairs and lay beside her again and put it in her mouth. She fell asleep almost instantly.

I was stunned and thought it may be a one off but she has done it again for her afternoon and late afternoon sleep. Hooray I think we've got something right.