pacifiers?

I really didnt want to use one at all but it seems like Gillian may want it after all. Shes not completely relaxed by it but it does do some of the job when shes fussy. The hospital gave it to her in the nursery without asking so I think she became accustomed to it right away. Will this become a problem later on or should I just give it to her for now since she is only a few weeks old?

Re: pacifiers?

I was on the fence about pacis also, and before Noah was born I was going to give him one definitely...but once he was born, he wasn't interested in it at all, however I wish he had been! Its a wonderful tool for helping babies to sort themselves out!

Give her the paci, if it helps to soothe her than its totally worth it! Good Luck!

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I didn't want to give one to Ryan, but decided he needed one at about 2 weeks. It really helped soothe him and I'm glad we gave it to him. He actually gave it up on his own. At 7 months, he doesn't take it at all now and used his thumb to soothe himself.

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I wasn't planning on using it with Bella (Max never wanted one), and she was a good baby. She was in the hospital at 10 weeks old, and she was very fussy. The nurse asked if she could give her a soothie pacifier, and I agreed. (She hadn't taken any of the other ones I had tried.) She used it to soothe herself to sleep and was a wonderful sleeper! (The one thing we made sure to do was NOT put it back in her mouth if she woke up during the night. We let her put herself back to sleep, so we wouldn't have to keep getting up to give it back. When she got old enough, she put it back in herself.) When she was 20 months, Bella had a bad virus with sores in her mouth and couldn't suck on the pacifier for a week. We just "lost" them then, and she has been fine without a pacifier since.

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I think you will be fine. S*cking is a natural instinct to soothe them.

DD only takes hers to sleep....she does not use it during wake time.

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I wasn't going to but day 2 home, I realized how much it would help her sleep and popped it right in! She was also sucking her finger and thumb 5 minutes out of the womb so I knew she needed it. I'd rather her have a paci now where I can take it away, where I can't take away her thumb in the future.

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Some babies never take to them. Patrick never wanted them. But, my daughters love theirs. Though I am trying to ween them now. Plus now they are saying it helps prevent SIDS so I had no problem giving it to them.

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I didnt want to give it to my son either, but he was very fussy the first three months and it helped a lot. But he would really only use it when he was tired, and he would fall asleep with it and then spit it out. The sucking really helps them settle. I took it away when he was about 4-5 months old without any problems.

xxxxxxx

Message edited 2/9/2007 8:28:40 PM.

Re: pacifiers?

Re: pacifiers?

I hate them, so I'm VERY thankful Julia never wanted it, it becomes a PITA later on when you want to wean them off it, my niece is going to be 4 and she still uses one, my sister is having a hard time getting her to not use it anymore.......

I didn't want to deal with that.

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I was against pacifiers and the hospital gave her one in the nursery and I wasn't able to see her for the first 24hrs since I had a csection and she was in the NICU, so I really didn't have much say in it.

However I did find that it really helped to calm her down once we got her home, and also helped us get her into a good sleep schedule. Aside for the first 2 months, she was always a good napper and nighttime sleeper.

However at 1 year the doc recommended we get rid of it, so one day I just didn't give it to her and within a few days we were completely off of the paci. I just threw them out the other day after 2.5 months of being pacifier free. I do think that it is easier to get rid of them at around a year old then when they are older.

For now, i say give it to her if it soothes her!

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I am not crazy about them either, but I do think they have their use. Luca takes one occasionally- when I know he's not hungry but just has a need to suck. Because we give it to him only when he really "needs" it, I think it will be easy enough to take it away when he's a few months old. Unfortunately, my MIL uses as a tool to shut him up, and even though she knows how I feel about it, I can't really make a big deal out of it because she watches him for me 2 afternoons a week. Thank goodness it's only for a few hours at a time.

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Re: pacifiers?

I would prefer not to use one either, but Hannah has found her thumb - so I tend to give her the pacifier when she needs it (day or night). I was a thumb sucker and my mom said she had such a hard time breaking me of it, so as a previous poster said its probably easier to wean her off the pacifier then her thumb.

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I gave in and was happy when later the SIDS news came out. We only used it at night after 7-8 months

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Both my children used pacifiers for maybe 3 months and then wanted nothing to do with them. I was happy because I am not a fan of a child with a pacifier always in their mouth (hoping not to offend anyone here!).

However, my kids did/do s uck thier thumb. And you can't take that away! Andrew stopped s ucking his thumb at about 16 months. We didn't do anything, he just one day stopped out of the clear blue.

Lauren does s uck her thumb a wee bit when she is frustrated and crying. SHe does not s uck it to go to sleep, so I am hoping she doesn't make it a long term habit.

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Re: pacifiers?

Neither of mine took to them (not for lack of trying!) but they are both thumb suckers.