Before my first daughter was born I remember thinking write clearly that I didn’t want to use dummies..soothers.. pacifiers – whatever you choose to call them. I hated seeing children of 3-4years old walking around dummy firmly stuck in their mouths, talking through them and finding it hard to understand what they were saying.
When Izzy was about 4weeks old I was tired, she fed all the time and at night it was becoming clear that she was only feeding so often out of comfort so we bought some dummies and it helped massively. I didn’t put a dummy in her mouth every time in the day that she made a noise and I made sure that if she was hungry she was fed rather than pacified. However when she was unsettled at night or if we needed that extra few minutes to get somewhere to sit down for a feed it helped so much. So much.
From 6 months we only used the dummy for sleep. We would give her a dummy and a snugly toy/blanket at nap time and nighttime and it became a sleep cue. We never used it again in the day time apart from on an odd occasion when she was very unwell.
I am firmly in the pro dummy club.
But I still had the occasional bout of guilt for using dummies but why?
Why did I feel guilty for soothing my child? For helping her sleep?
I felt less guilty when I realised that most of the people I knew that didn’t use dummies didn’t do so out of choice but because their baby refused to take them. Because not all babies do.
I was invited recently to the launch of a new soother (dummy) range by Tommee Tippee at The Baby Show in London which is what made me think of writing this post.
Cute new designs:
They have developed a new line of soothers which come in 4 ranges – Fun, Anytime, Night time and Air they have a large, long, flat teat which is easier to hold in babies mouth and in their tests the new soother was accepted first time by more babies.
This is a plus in my book – this time around we were prepared and had them ready when Chloe was 4weeks old ( most HV’s recommend establishing breastfeeding first which is why we waited until 4wks) and luckily for us she has taken to them. Again she doesn’t have it all the time and its mostly just for settling her when upset or over tired.
It has really helped with her sleep, she still feeds on demand when she’s hungry and is gaining weight well and she uses her dummy when she just needs to be settled.
Some research has shown that using dummies for bedtime can reduce the risk of SIDS ( sudden infant death syndrome) whilst more research is still needed on this it’s certainly worth thinking about. You can find more info on the Lullaby Trust Website
What’s your view on dummies? Do you agree with me that that using them or not using them is an individual choice and neither choice is wrong.
