Baby Matters: PACIFIER OR THUMB?

As a new mummy, naturally all sorts of ideal scenarios go through my mind during pregnancy; and actually way before that, like say since 16 years old, I have been thinking about how I want to raise my child! 

So one of the key issues that always pop up will be to give or not to give.. The Sacred Pacifier!! 

My stand was.. If I could.. I wont and I was thinking babies are like white paper, if you dont introduce something like that, why would they know??!!! So pacifier went straight out of the "to buy" list.

And the big day came and you know newborns - sleep wakes feed and the cycle goes. Well done! Days pass and I was thinking hey I am getting a hang of this manz! 2 weeks pass and then suddenly... ... The Twilight hour came!! (more of those in other upcoming posts) where Eva starts crying and fussing every night from 11pm to 1am. No idea what was wrong and I always thought perhaps cluster feeding?? Comfort nursing maybe?? 

Well, with all that unanswered and she dont seem to be hungry, I thought perhaps and maybe and probably she simply needed to suck (google tells me that babies soothe themselves by sucking! its nature!) and ta-dah came the pacifier from the Avent set which hubby bought (review on that in later posts). 

It is orthodontic, symmetrical collapsible teat so being symmetrical, you do not need to worry about it being upside down hence you can just pop it into your little one's mouth anyhow. But I changed to "Advanced Orthodontic" one later which she is using till now! (Scroll to bottom) 

BUT my attempts to let Eva take the pacifier (we call it du-du) failed!! She wont take it! I was like OMG!! This is the sign!! We dont need to start her on du-du! Haha.. but eventually we still did. I cannot remember exactly when and how I started her on the du-du but I needed to do so in order for everyone's ease of taking care of her on my behalf. Well, I needed to be considerate and make things a little easier for everyone ya? 

So it did make life simpler especially during naptimes / bedtimes but at the back of mind, I keep picturing her running around as toddler with the du-du in her mouth!  *faints* That is like the last thing I ever want it to happen!! But even more fearful to imagine her sucking thumb!! Oh.. kill me!! What a big dilemma!! 

My extensive reading on forums and all tells me that pacifier is something which you can wean off and there are like so many examples around me saying how they actually remove the pacifier from the toddlers and even more amazing, some say the kid just decided not to take it anymore on his/her own! But thumb is something that you cannot remove from the kid. So the choice is clear!!! (By the way, Eva's classmate has been sucking thumb and the teachers at infant care also shared that thumb is really not the way to go because it's sooo difficult to wean them off!!)

And so I started trying something which I thought might work.. months down the road.. I think it does work!! 

Pacifier is only given to Eva when she shows signs of sleeping as it helps to soothe her to sleep. And whenever she falls into deep sleep, she will spit out the pacifier on her own. So it was a sign to us that she is well asleep. Heeding the advice which I read online, we never attempted to put the pacifier back into her mouth. Only when she wakes up in middle of sleep then will we give her the pacifier again. Very often, she spits it out after only several sucking. 

So say if pacifier is given to her when she display signs of sleepiness YET did not actually sleep, I will tell her "Eva, if you are not sleeping, do not eat the du-du." and I will remove it from her. Amazingly! Later on, whenever I say that, she will spit it out if she decides that she is not intending to sleep! And we came to this advance stage where she will scream at you if you come near her with the pacifier and she apparently doesnt want to sleep!! 

So the pacifier has become not only a soothing tool for her, it also become a communication tool! After saying it all, Pacifier or thumb? All for Pacifier!! No regrets!! 

As I mentioned, I changed her pacifier to the Advanced Orthodontic. With all the sayings that du-du is going to affect their teeth development and making them buckteeth etc, I decided to invest in this. Well I was thinking if you dare say you are advanced then you have got to be good?? 



This pacifier actually has no pointers that will attract any mummies and daddies other than it's ADVANCED orthodontic. HAHAHA.

What you probably wont like (but they are precisely also the reason why you should buy it):

1. It does not come with any ring that can allow you to easy remove the pacifier from baby's mouth or from its own cap not attach it to those hanging tags to prevent pacifier from dropping to ground. 

BUT 

Yes it may be more inconvenient but I have no intentions of attaching it anywhere on Eva because she is NEVER going to be moving around with her du-du on! Only for sleeptime. Period. 

2. It comes in a special shape and not symmetical hence you will need to specifically check the direction before you insert it into baby's mouth! If in wrong direction, baby is gonna spit it out!  

BUT

Precisely it is specially designed in this way for a reason which is why I buy it. =P

Unique "wings"

Advanced orthodontic teat with unique wings that minimizes pressure on gums and developing teeth. The wings make the teat wider so that the pressure that is caused by baby's suckling is distributed more evenly resulting in less pressure per tooth.

Shaped nipple

The nipple is shaped to let baby's tongue remain in natural position. 

And yes Eva is having the pink one! One in school (aka infant care centre) and one at home. It costs $9.90 each which I thought was fine especially so that Eva is using the same 0-6mths one even till now (she is 9mths now). I tried to change her to a 6-12mths soother (under the classic range) but she wont take it and is happy with her same old one. 

Happy Baby = Happy Mummy = Happy Daddy