is introducing a pacifier at all a good idea?

[hanakahiro]

@sh419ob As others have mentioned evidence on nipple confusion is pretty murky. The truly verifiable negative evidence on pacifiers is about affecting oral development if their use is continued too late. But the thing that also impacts oral development very similarly is thumb sucking. I wanted my kids to use a pacifier to avoid thumb sucking as much as possible. As they get older you have control over stopping pacifiers as you can simply choose to stop providing them. You can't just choose to not provide a thumb so you have very little control over them stopping. That was enough to convince me that pacifiers are absolutely a good idea. The reduction of SIDS risk definitely adds to their appeal for me.

Our older child used a pacifier consistently until about a year old and then we gradually weaned her. It was long enough to firmly avoid a thumb sucking habit but early enough that she wasn't so emotionally attached to it. My second is a newborn and has generally hated pacifiers but we have been convincing her to take them more and more and now there is less and less time spent with fingers in her mouth so I'm feeling good about that. I'll probably keep them going for a similar timeframe as our first if I can.

 

[javier_is_life]

@hanakahiro

You can't just choose to not provide a thumb

Well, you CAN, you just shouldn't...

*gets out a tiny thumb guillotine*

 

[peacebestill5]

@javier_is_life And once your kid outgrows it, it doubles in use to cut the cap off your cigar!

 

[jmbosh]

@javier_is_life My baby has a pacifier now because the alternative was his hands in his mouth. Mostly he does this to self soothe when sleepy.

I sucked on my fingers as a baby as my parents were anti pacifier. My parents couldn't get me to break the habit till I was nearly 5 and the dentist helped them scare me off it + putting socks onto my hands at bedtime (lol)! I do remember feeling upset about the whole thing.

My younger sister got a paci and was weaned much earlier and more easily. As a new Mom I think I am making the right choice for our situation.

 

[ggirl1986]

@hanakahiro And also, some kids are just genetically predisposed and even avoiding pacifiers/bottles/thumbsucking they will still wind up with terrible crossbite!

Source: my kid's orthodontist bill

 

[ashworth]

@sh419ob Pacifiers are associated with reduced SIDS risk and don't seem to cause dental or speech development problems until much deeper into the toddler stage. As mentioned previously, the nipple confusion issues seems to be debunked.

From personal experience, my EBF baby would initially not accept a pacifier. She showed some interest briefly around 6-8 weeks before again rejecting it. We also struggled on and off with bottle rejection. I think she just wasn't into having a "substitute."

However, the pacifier became very helpful when my baby got her first teeth (pretty early--mine started getting hers at 3.5 months and had about 10 by her first birthday) and our pediatrician recommended discontinuing nursing to sleep due to the increased risk of tooth decay. Note that this is a contentious issue as you will see many popular breastfeeding resources like Kelly Mom dispute evidence that breastfeeding can cause cavities; however in talking to my pediatrician and doing more research, the "perfect case" breastfeeding scenario doesn't really account for things like poor latch/ties/"boob napping" where the baby is sort of continuously suckling tiny amounts of milk for prolonged periods of time, or the effects of oral microbiome changes that occur when solids are introduced.

In any case, I started pushing the pacifier as a substitute for nursing to sleep. I'd start by nursing her, and then swap for the pacifier while continuing to rock/soothe. Over a week or two I transitioned to only the rocking and pacifier and no nursing at bedtime (switched the final feed to the beginning of the bedtime routine instead of the end, and continued to nurse 1-2x overnight until night weaning). She finally took to it and it became a very valuable sleep tool for many months, until I took it away relatively cold turkey around 12 months. I never gave it to her outside of sleeping times, which I think made it easier to remove and less impactful on her daily life compared to babies who have their soothers available at all times.

Her speech is coming along great, there was no issue weaning her off the pacifier, and there was no impact on our nursing relationship (entirely EBF with the occasional pumped bottle of milk, almost fully weaned now at ~14months but still nursing once in the morning). Would do it again gladly!

 

[joint_praise]

@sh419ob Both my kids started with them right away in the hospital and neither had issues with latch or bfing or bottle feeding. We did it all right from the start and has zero issues.

My one friend who delayed introducing anything for fear of nipple confusion ended up with 2 kids who would only bf and she basically couldn’t go back to work because of this. When she did go back when they were on solids, she had to pump to keep her supply up and then dump it because her kids wouldn’t take a bottle. I can’t imagine doing all that work for nothing. She couldn’t donate it because she wasn’t willing to give up her glass of wine at night so it all was wasted. Her kids are older so I remembered her experience and did the opposite of what she did.

 

[inhizeyez]

@joint_praise You can’t donate if you have any alcohol? Yikes. I EBF and still have a glass here and there

 

[su1]

@inhizeyez Donated milk has like the highest of high standards.

 

[inhizeyez]

@su1 That makes sense.

 

[willowstars]

@inhizeyez They have to be able to give donated milk to babies in the most delicate situations, including way premature (mom’s milk will have a harder time kicking in), on various serious medications, etc. The donated milk can’t interact with anything else going on, so they’re very strict about alcohol, medications, etc. Much more so than breastfeeding a more mature infant.

FWIW, my donor paperwork was the most thorough I’ve ever experienced. College, employment, cancer scare, whatever. They are DILIGENT.

 

[olivemcr]

@joint_praise Pumping to keep one’s supply up is a lot of work, but in this case you can tell it’s not for nothing.

 

[joint_praise]

@olivemcr I struggled with supply and spent over a thousand hours pumping between both kids including a nightly power pump session for 24 months. If I were in her situation, it would have been really hard to continue. Pumping is grueling and I don’t know if I would have stuck with it if my kids weren’t eating pumped milk.

 

[olivemcr]

@joint_praise I’m 10 months into pumping, which was not my first choice. I do it because my baby struggles to transfer enough milk with just nursing. I also struggled a lot with secondary low supply, especially at the beginning, so I have a lot of complicated feelings about dropping pumps or letting my supply decrease due to the baby eating more solids.

Nursing is so rewarding and such a useful tool that pumping to make it happen seems realistic to me. Exhausting, but realistic.

Wow, you power pumped every day for that long?? That’s some major dedication!

 

[joint_praise]

@olivemcr You’d think I’d have had awesome supply with all that work. Nope. We had to supplement with formula for both despite my obsession over getting enough milk made for both of them. Lactation cookies. Water. Supplements. Power pumping. Pumping every 3 hours in the office starting at 12 weeks. Some of us just never make enough. So frustrating. I hope they come out with some study showing how my kids are better off, but honestly, formula fed kids are totally fine too. I don’t know why I stuck with it I guess I like a challenge and I’m not a quitter. I don’t know if I’d do it again if we had a third - definitely not having a third!

 

[heloise23]

@sh419ob I sucked my thumb until I was 10 and ruined my teeth, so I wanted to get my kid on a pacifier right away as it’s an easier habit to break. I planned to breastfeed so looked into the ‘nipple confusion’ concept and it didn’t hold water for me (bottle/flow preference is definitely a thing, we pace fed when we used bottles) so we introduced it in the hospital. Ended up EBF and she rejected the pacifier by 3 months and never started sucking thumb or fingers, thankfully

 

[tcmack]

@heloise23 This is a great point.

My son is going on five and we are still FIGHTING the finger sucking. We have tried everything. He is developing an overbite because of it. I wish we had introduced the pacifier because at least you can burn a pacifier....can't chop off a kid's fingers.

 

[renegade999]

@heloise23 Anecdotally, when my daughter was a few weeks old I remember calling a lactation consultant in desperation asking OPs exact question. Her response was "in all my years of helping people breastfeed, I have never seen a baby suffer from nipple confusion". Also anecdotally, despite offering the pacifier my daughter now sucks her thumb and I agree it's a hard habit to break. Go for the paci!

 

[lbrox]

@heloise23 100% this. My son started sucking his thumb, so we gave him a pacifier. We weaned him of it around 2.

My daughter started sucking her thumb, so we gave her a pacifier. She refused it. She's 6 and still sucks her thumb to fall asleep despite all efforts to break the habit.

 

[jonnyalliance]

@sh419ob Personally from experience as someone who breastfed 3 children. I could not psychologically handle being a human pacifier 24 hours a day and giving a pacifier saved my sanity.