Ok, the day before I came home with DS, the pediatrician said it was ok to give him a pacifier. Since I know from two of my U/S that DS was a finger sucker and he expressed his need to suck more than just to nurse while we were in the hospital, I decided to try to pacify. WELL, THAT was a mistake cause then he had problems latching on to BF all that night. Needless to say, I put the pacifier away for a later time.

I was wondering if it would be ok to give him a paci now that he's two weeks old and his latch is better? Or do think he could still get the nipple confusion? He tries to suck his thumb and he is successful at times for a little while but most of the time he gets frustrated for lack of control of his arms that he ends up in a raging fit.

I have read so many mixed reviews about pacifiers that I don't know what to do. Plus, should I let him suck his thumb if he wants to? Anyone have experience with this or have any ideas? ALL opinions are welcome! Thanks!

It's best to wait until a baby is at least 4-6 weeks old and nursing is going smoothly before offering a pacifier if you prefer to give one.

I choose to nurse extra rather than offer one and that worked out for me. I've always had a good milk supply and haven't had any problems with premature weaning. (Those are two of the concerns with giving pacifiers is reduced milk supply and earlier weaning)

I also had/have a baby with high suck needs, in the early months she sucked her fingers in addition to nursing around the clock! But she doesn't suck her fingers anymore and I've heard that that's one possible benefit of on-demand nursing is less chance of thumb sucking.....

Hope that you figure out what works for you! :)

Personally, I never really gave my pacifiers, I guess they got them a little bit there, but mostly I tried to "push" the thumb... *I* was a thumb sucker and my husband was one... and we were such content babies (so I hear from our mothers)... the three babies have all sucked their thumbs, my oldest never wanted to suck on anything so I didn't ever have any of those "issues" with her. Seems like once they figure out where that thumb is, that they find it when they *need* pacifying... it's always with them, never dirty (while their infants anyway ::snort::) and you can't LOSE it! :) Children seem to wean off the thumb easier than the pacifier... at least it seems so to me. I never was a challenge to give up my thumb... and my three year old is already tapering off her thumb... So... that's my personal little opinion there. :)

my youngest 2 never had soothers, My son only chewed on the tags of everything, blankie, his charlie barley bear, sisters stuff animals, at 4 he rarely does it now. my youngest sucked 3 fingers on the right hand, and still does. i almost wished she had taken a soother, because it is much easier to take away. you can't take away the fingers. there are some mornings when she has gotten up and her fingers look like prunes and her teeth have cause major indents in her fingers that don't go away. our dentist said, she will probably stop when she gets her 2nd year molars, she has 2 and shows no signs of stopping.

Wow... my kids thumbs don't get like that... hhmm... mine have even "teethed" on their thumbs and they have perfectly normal looking thumbs... and they don't have any teeth issues either... my husband I don't have overbites because of Thumb sucking either... ::snort:: Can ya tell, I'm a bit thumb sucker advocate... ::Snort::

We let ds have pacifiers for a while, they say now that having them while they sleep can help prevent SIDS. Our son was not a finger or thumb sucker so we did let him have the pacifier for a while. We got rid of it gradually as he got older and it was gone I think before he turned one.

I"ve never done pacifiers with mine. When I was young and new and stupid..with my first...my MIL had stayed a day or two after the birth and she was a huge paci user with her kids. She was trying to 'help' of course and offered it repeatedly to my ds. He wanted nothing to do with it. He'd spit it out every time. With force! LOL He would however such *our* finger when especially fussy.

Anyway...

My daughter was my only thumb sucker. She found it on her own very early on. She didn't suck it a *lot* but a fair bit I suppose. But my thing is..I can't stand to see kids walking around with their thumbs (or pacifiers) in their mouths. It's just one of my 'things'. So, once the girl was mobile, we started working on discouraging the thumb. We'd simply say something like 'no, you don't need that, get your thumb out of your mouth' and pull it away. Most of the time that would work, but she'd still have moments where she'd go to stick it back in. We just put a bandaid over her thumb and that was it. It would never go in her mouth that way. And she only sucked the one. :p Only once or twice did she pull off the bandaid..and even then it wasn't to immediately stick it in her mouth, she just looked at it funny.

Anyway...
All that to say..if he really has that sucking need and is trying for his thumb, go ahead and help him get a hold of it and see what happens. It's not always a 'horrible mess' to get them weaned from it later. I'm sure there are just as many ugly thumb weaning stories as there are ugly paci weaning ones. But me, personally, I think I'd rather they suck their own thumb than something artificial. KWIM?

Neither of my boys took to a paci and are thumb suckers. My 3 1/2 yo still sucks quite a bit...we have to use stuff on his thumb when it gets red, but it doens't seem to hurt him. The 8 mo is just starting to get the hang of his thumb. Both boys would just chew on the paci and not suck.

I never used pacfiiers. My MIL really wanted me to but i didn't. I would see other kids that did have pacifiers and if for some reason they didn't have it with them or the mom was trying to have them get off it they would just bawl and not stop so i didn't want to go through that with my kids. I figured it would be easier to get them off the thumb. My dd was a thumb sucker and as she got older i did what Tara did. Me and my hubby would take it out and tell her not to suck her finger. It definetly took consistency but worked. My ds on the other hand even though he was a strong sucker never became a thumb sucker.

Hey! The first night in the hospital, my newborn daughter was so fussy and wanted to suck all night long... I literally could've kept her on the boob the whole night. A nurse told us that no matter what we do, do not give her a soother. At this point, I wasn't sure how I felt about it so I didn't give it to her. My husband was up pretty much the whole night with his pinky finger in her mouth.

The second night in the hospital, it was the same story with my daughter wanting to suck, suck, suck. The nurse that night said "well, why don't you just give her a soother?" My husband was so exhausted from the night before and I gave in and tried it. It was a life saver. I knew all that time she wasn't hungry, her sucking instinct was just so strong. She really did need something to do exactly what a soother is supposed to... sooth her. :)

I found it really hard at the hospital because every nurse that we had had a completely different opinion about the pacifier and breast feeding etc. In my gut, I didn't have an issue with giving her one but didn't want to disappoint the first nurse by giving her one.

We've given my son one right from the beginning this time. Because of my experience with my daughter, I know the difference between him being hungry and him just needing something to fall asleep. Both of my kids are/was great nursers and the soother definately didn't cause nipple confusion.

I do remember my mom just wanting to plug my daughters mouth every time she cried... it seems for her it was an easy solution to keep her quiet. However, I made sure that before I used the soother I recognized the cry. At the beginning it's really hard to determine which cry is for what. So I just told my mom that I just wanted to listen before giving into the easy way... which is why it's been easier this time with my son.

My daughter who is now 22 months still has her "soo, soo" but only for bed and loooonnnng car rides. She adores it but I do not allow it outside of her bed or car seat.... sometimes for unusual situations like she's way past her bedtime or sick she gets it. Not sure when I'll wean her from it but I'm sure I'll know when the time comes.

Hopefully my long-winded message helps!

Laura

We never gave Caleb a paci. We also have u/s pictures of him with his fingers up by his mouth (not sure if they are in the mouth, I think in one they are). He has always sucked his first two fingers. He is three and still does it, it is his "sleepy signal." He sucked our fingers too at a young age.

My 5 year old still sucks his thumb and he has an overbite because of it. He only sucks it in bed. He's not allowed anywhere else, he's not really allowed in bed, but I haven't figured out how to police that one yet. He quit when he was 3 but then we moved and it was too much for him I guess and he started up again.

My 2 year old had a soother and when we moved again, I told him before hand that when we moved the soothers would go in the garbage. He could repeat that back to me and so when we moved, I got rid of them all just like that. He was fine. He hasn't tried to steal dd's soothers either which I worried about.

With my first, I thought the thumb was great, it was there, they couldn't lose it, etc. But you can't take it away. With soothers, you have to remember to take them with you which is a pain, but you can take it away. But you have to get up in the middle of the night and find it for them and stuff. So I don't know which way I lean. My 5 year old's thumb looks really bad and so do his teeth. I've tried the sprays, etc, and nothing has helped. So I'm just letting it go. If we see it, we tell him to stop. I don't think we will do braces in this house, so if he wants them when he leaves home, hopefully he won't suck his thumb anymore! LOL