I am asking my readers to please weigh in on the great pacifier debate that is taking place in the W. household. We have been pretty anti-pacifier in our house. We broke down once or twice with Wesley, but he had no interest in them and would spit the thing right out. Yes, he lips the tag on his Stinky Bear, but I think I prefer that to a pacifier.Then along came Ryan. He's never had a pacifier, but this kid loves to suck! When he finishes a bottle, he often acts hungry, but if we give him a "chaser" he usually just chews contentedly on the nipple and doesn't eat. This morning I stopped a crying fit and lulled him to sleep by letting him suck on my pinky finger. Duane and I are pretty sure a pacifier would work wonders for Ryan, but we are trying to be strong and not introduce one.
Some of you may be asking why we have an aversion to pacifiers. Well, it's for a number of reasons.
- We've heard horror stories of having to have a dozen "binkies" in the house at all times, of searching the crib in the middle of the night for a binky that has fallen out, of going to the store at midnight because you can't find one of the dozen binkies.
- We've heard horror stories of breaking the child from the pacifier.
- We've both seen children we think are WAY too old for a pacifier who are totally dependant on them.
Ryan has his one month appointment coming up on Monday and I am going to talk to our pediatrician about it, but I want to hear from you all. PLEASE let me know if you used a pacifier with your child or not, why you made the decision you did, tricks that worked with you and yes, share those horror stories too. I need some mommy advice.
5 comments:
I didn't really want Grant to have a pacifier either, but he's been a little sucker from the beginning. :) He was always sucking on his fingers and when he was really upset or at bedtime we'd give him the pacifier, and it worked. We've been lucky- he hardly ever uses it during the day now. We have one with us in case of emergency when we go somewhere, but really the only time he uses it is at naps and bedtime. Even then he often spits it out once he's asleep. I had a few people tell me it's easier to break from the pacifier than the thumb. Good luck! And btw, I need to come visit you!
well I have 2 thumb suckers and while at the time I thought great, we cant ever leave home without it, drop it, loose it, etc....now I am cursed because we CANT leave it at home, throw it away, etc.....
But my feeling is if a child wants a binky or something give it to them... they will get rid of it when they are ready..
The advice my mom gave me about these things is this...how often do you see a child graduating from highschool in diapers (for potty training worries) or sucking on a pacifier or thumb....
Good luck!
You may recall that Elaina had a severe binky addiction from the time she was in the nursery. And we were one of those families who had no less than 10 binkies stashed around the house. The very good side about a binky baby is that binkies are easy to wash, easy to limit and you can work to phase them out. Lincoln on the other hand is a total thumb sucker.
With either option you know that they use whatever they have available to soothe and comfort themselves. They are two of the most content kids around it I believe it's partly due to them finding their own solution to self-soothing. We worked on phasing out and restricting Elaina's binky until she just gave it up for good. I don't know how to go about restricting Lincoln's thumb.
My vote is to offer the binky to Ryan and you may find that he is even more satisfied and content than he's ever been. And the previous comment is true that the kid will get rid of it in their own time... well before high school graduation!!
Please keep us posted on what you decide!
Which end will the pacifier be used for? tee hee...
Dang he's cute! I say pacifier is easier than thumb. But what do I know? I know that you shouldn't take advice from THIS mommy.
Ah, I was waiting until I "had time" to thoughtfully respond to your request for binky advice. Then I saw your post from today.
I will truncate my thoughts, but let me just say that I WISH Michael would take a binky, he loves to suck, but he can't keep the darn thing in his mouth. I kept hoping he'd get the hang of it as he got older, but no dice.
I'm glad that seems to be working out for you!!!
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