Pacifiers.. yes or no?

[tdot mama]

Hi everyone.  I'm 33 wks pregnant with baby #2 and I can't help but think about what I'm going to do differently this time around.  I have an almost 2 year old DS at home and when I think back.. I wonder how much of our experiences of his first 2 years had to do with his personality vs my parenting. 

I ebf with DS till he was about 7 months and fingers crossed that I will do the same with this babe.  I still nursed DS thru pregnancy but had to cut back drastically because it was wayyyyy too painful.  I'm still toying with if I will freely nurse him once the baby arrives or keep up our routine as it is right now - he comfort nurses for about 5 minutes and then DS takes him to bed.  (Although I have a felling that I will be doing whatever it takes to survive those first few weeks after the babe is born... yes I am very very nervous.. I am such a different person when sleep deprived...)

I think that I waited too long to introduce a paci to DS (I think I went to 7 or 8 wks and then tried to introduce it) and he never took to it.  No big deal I thought... until he continued to grow and I became his paci... especially when he was around the 16-18 month mark.  It was kinda brutal and I'm not looking forward to going down that road again.

Does anyone that had experience with giving their child a paci have any regrets?  Or is there anything that I should be considering that I'm not?   

Thanks everyone! 

[skycheattraffic]

My experience may not be relevant since DD didn't nurse directly until she was 10 weeks old. I EPd then transitioned to direct nursing. DD had a binky from about one week old and I would have been in serious trouble without it. As time went on, the comfort shifted to nursing and in fact she chucked poor bink at 12 months in a fit of rage and never took it again no matter how much it was offered or available. All that to say that the paci helped but it hasn't worked for 7 months now. I think if your new LO nurses well, you could introduce it earlier. Good luck and congrats!

[ThreeTwoFive]

I ripped mine out of the packaging on day 10 at 2 a.m. in a sleep-deprived haze, so kudos to you to making it to 7 weeks with your first!

My DS dropped the paci around 4 months, sucked his thumb for a while, and then stopped that, too.

I did worry that it had screwed up his latch.  Soothies were the only one that didn't change his latch too much.

My advice: don't overthink it.  It will depend on the kid.  

[KellyandBean]

If you feel uncomfortable with the idea of a toddler/preschooler with a pacifier then don't start at all. My DD started at 3 weeks when colic started and still has it at 33 months. She has NEVER fallen asleep without either that or my breast since 3 weeks and i don't see her giving it up for a very long time to come. Unless you think you have the..will power?...to take it away then don't ever give it.

On another note I'd totally do it all over again the same. I'm SO glad weaning her was super easy because she had her paci and now her paci "lives" in her bedroom so she isn't walking around in public with it which is nice.

If you do a paci start with a soothies and then move to an ortho friendly one after about 6 months or so  since soothies are really bad for teeth alignment.

[Snapdragon]

hi! I just weaned my 2 and 1/2 yr old from the paci about a month ago. And I have to say I LOVED the paci!! I gave him the 'gumdrop" brand kind- right from infancy. And it helped me so much to keep nursing and the extra sucking need as seperate- I nursed him but then he could suck the paci to fall asleep.

I was worried till I weaned him that it would be hard to do! I fretted a while since he was 2 that I should do it and I saw his teeth pushing out from it and his dentist told us to do it. But he was still using it to go to sleep. Finally we did it cold turkey a month ago and are done with it now! And loooking back because- now his teeth have already shifted back to a good position- it ended up being a really good thing for us- gave ds a good sense of comfort and helped me so much through the first two and a half yrs of his life! I am glad we are past it now but also glad I used it. I particularly like the gumdrop paci- not the one you get in stores but the one you get online. It is soft and small. Good luck!

[sk8boarder15]

I would say No on the paci. The Paci is a stand in for mom. I know it sucks, but nursing is supposed to be the all the time paci for a while. I eventually broke down and gave one to my son in the car becuase we couldn't even drive 10mins to LLL (Which I badly needed), and for 3 months he LOVED it but that was it. by a few months old he quit it never to go back. He did occasionally suck his thumbs, but that was it. He doesn't have any oral fixation now at age 2 (he stopped nursing at 15 months with only a very small push from me) but I think that in combo with those squeezy food packs messed up his latch. It was bad at first, but we got it figured out. Then around a year it got AWFUL those last few months of nursing were horrible. But he was a great eater, so I didn't feel bad when I started workind and dropping feedings. Then DH put him to bed a few nights in a row and we weaned unplanned right around Christmas. I'm glad we aren't having to break him of it now and hes very well adjusted and happy. We are still APs and my son just gets comfort in other ways, but no paci is pretty awesome. 

[mamazee]

I think it depends on the specifics. I overproduced, so using a paci for comfort sucking helped slow down my ridiculous level of milk production and helped keep me from getting mastitis. For that purpose it was good, but of course the thing that made it good for me - slowing down production - could make it become a problem for many other moms. I think it's very situation-specific. The one I needed it with the worst didn't really like it anyway, so even if you think it might help you, your baby might reject it. But those few weeks she did take it got my supply issues under control so it was worth it anyway. I ended up being a fan for my situation, but I would wait and see what you're dealing with. You should probably wait a few weeks anyway to make sure you have enough supply, and then if you start to have any supply issues you'd need to cut it out right away. but overall I was a fan.

My real concern would be supply I guess is the gist of this all. A way to help a colicky, teething, or otherwise uncomfortable child without the use of medicine seems like a good thing to me so long as you don't have undersupply issues or don't create undersupply issues, but pacis can definitely cause troubles there.

I see it as an issue of using caution but that in some cases they can help.

[vegrunr]

I was set on not using one but then I had the 24/7 nurser.  Around 6 weeks I offered but he didn't take it until 9 weeks.  I also had over-supply  and he was a great nurser so I wasn't worried about that atspec.  Several times my son nursed for over an hour until he threw it all up, not just spit up.  He loved to suck!  The paci helped a lot.  We gradually lessened it's use around a year to car rides and sleep time.  At 2 years we took it away cold turkey (was only being used in his crib by this time) by him giving it to a friend's baby at his bday party.  We had talked about it for a few weeks ahead of time and explained that it is for babies etc.  He was upset for about 2 days when falling asleep but that was it.  He asked for it for about a week afterwards. Then it was done.  I would do the same thing again.  It truly saved my sanity (somewhat : )

[Adaline'sMama]

I used one for DD, and then she kind of stopped liking it around the time she started eating food and I never gave her one again. I figure Ill do the same thing again this time around. 

[evabea]

DD loves her pacifier at 28 months, she likes to go to sleep with 3 of them. I try to keep them in the bedroom, but she asks for them a few times a day, sigh, I'm too much of a push-over. I didn't try to give her one until 2.5 months, just nursed all the time and let he suck my finger to sleep as needed. Sometime after 3months I offered her another brand (she never liked the Soothies) and it's been pure love ever since. DD has also been a lousy sleeper and had bad teething times, so anything that helped her sleep was a huge plus. I wish, perhaps, I'd kept them more limited to naps and bedtime.

[ashleyhaugh]

we gave ds his when we came home from the hospital, and he nursed til he was 2yrs and 10 months. had no issues at all because of it. he did have it a long time though, past 3, because fro me it wasnt an issue. his dad took it away over a christmas visit, and i wasnt going to give it back, lol