Monday, March 9, 2009
Soothers... just to quiet the baby?
We have been having a discussion lately about soothers (susses, pacifiers...etc). How soon do you introduce them? Is it just to shut the kid up from screaming, or does it actually help them. Sometimes we find our son just wont relax until we give it to him, however, we dont know if we are starting a trend that will go downhill really fast, and he will be obsessed with them, and cannot sleep without one... for years. Anyways, thoughts about how soon you introduced a soother to the child? Do you regret it? Was it hard to take it the soother away from the older child?
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I was very lucky. Both of my kids used a pacifier and it was easy to take it away from both of them. Yes they did use the pacifier to soothe themselves and it kept them sleeping so I did not object. I would say we also used it just to shut them up, however bad that may sound, it worked. Sometimes you just need the sleep and the quiet, at least we did.
ReplyDeleteI gave all 3 of my kids a soother at about 2 hours old, only 1 took the soother. So I think that you cannot FORCE at soother on a baby that does not want it. If they take it, they need it, they really do sooth the baby, the whole sucking process is a reflex at this early age. As for taking it away, that is a whole other issue you can blog about in 3 years. For now it helps on the sleep, which is everything.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, how soon did you give them the pacifier? And did they take it right away or did you have to hold it in their mouth?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, did you try again any amount of times with the 2 kids that didnt take it right away?
I gaev both of them the pacifier after I finished breast feeding or just a little before. Paige was about 7 months and Madi was 6 months. They wouldn't take it before that.
ReplyDeleteWow so not for a long time... So did you breast feed everytime they were sucking for the first 6-7 months then if you didnt use a pacifier?
ReplyDeleteLove soothers. At the end of the day, is it really a big deal to use a soother to help your baby (and yourself) calm down and relax. I thought it would be hard to wean my oldest off the soother when he was 2 but it was so easy. Hope it works the same for baby #2.
ReplyDeleteWe used a soother for our daughter, she was just days old when we introduced it. We asked the Pediatrician in the Hospital her opinion and she said she didn't with her oldest and he sucked his thumb until he was 11 and has major dental work to come. They did use one with their daughter however and it soothed her and she was done with it around two. The way we see it is you can eventually take away a soother but not so much the thumb. From what I've experienced and from what friends have said, they don't usually switch to the thumb once the soother is gone anyhow. So, we decided to go ahead with one mostly due to the fact that our daughter would nurse for 45-60 minutes at a time, frequently falling asleep despite my every effort to keep her awake to eat and cluster feed at night. Every time I would attempt to remove her latch, she would wake up and start feeding again. It got very exhausting until the ah-ha moment when we introduced the sisi (as she calls it). She would then power feed 15 minutes and take the soother, fall asleep and started sleeping 7+ hours a night. Now on the flip side, she is now two and still occasionally has it for sleeping. She knows it stays in bed in the morning and she can have it again at night. For the most part she falls asleep rubbing the suckie end on her cheek (too cute) as opposed to actually having it in her mouth. I've heard of a lot of ways to ween them off - but at this age I figure she is old enough to understand when we tell her she is a big girl and doesn't need it anymore so it should go to a little baby who needs it more (in her case, she has a cousin due in a couple weeks that we can use as the example). I hope this helps somewhat. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteWe used a soother for Brianna and she used it from the get go. I figured it was better to use that because you can take it away eventually - whereas if they learn to self sooth by sucking their thumb, you can't take their thumb away! We were lucky, Bree weaned herself off the soother. She just didn't want it anymore one day!
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