I was reluctant to use a pacifier with my first child. So he sucked the first two fingers on his right hand. For eight years. You can’t take fingers away.
So I tried a pacifier with my second baby, but he didn’t want it, and he never sucked his fingers.
Velociraptor had one. It came in handy when he was in the hospital as it made it easier to give him medicine (put the medicine in his mouth and pop the binkie in, he sucks on it and swallows the medicine… it can be done without it but I found he would drool it out if I didn’t have a binkie round).
He wasn’t much for it though. At about… oh 6 months or so I think he was done with it. Didn’t want it, so I didn’t force it.
I keep it in my memories box now.
That was the case with our son. All the conflicting child-rearing theories quickly became academic once it was clear that the pacifier was an OFF switch. He went through early phases of spitting it out but still wanting it, then figuring out how to put it in by himself, then wanting it almost all the time. It was kind of comical for a while: he’d wake up, stagger/crawl around a bit until he found his pacifier, then sit there staring into space like he was having his morning coffee.
We started like your sister did, limiting the pacifier for naps and bedtime, and eventually he stopped using altogether. There were a few tears, but he adjusted pretty quickly. I forget exactly when that happened, but he’s 1 and 10 months now.
Hmm, let me remember.
As very tiny infants, I would use whatever methods necessary for them to be calm and quiet. Pacifiers were great, except when they relax their mouth as they drift off to sleep, and it falls out, waking them up 2 minutes later. Rinse, repeat.
#1 sucked her thumb til she was about 8
#2 sucked thumb in utero, gave up when she was about 5
#3 minor use of pacifier until 3-4 months
#4 sucked two fingers, upside down until 6-7
#5 minor use of pacifier until 3-4 months
Don’t sweat it, let them learn to comfort themselves.
ETA, this wasn’t especially surprising, both my husband and myself are somewhat orally fixated.
Thirteen years is a long time to think back, but I can say that my son did use a pacifier, didn’t seem overly attached to it, and lost interest in it on his own at some point. OTH, he was attached to the breast (literally and figuratively) for a LOT longer than the pacifier.
But he’s weaned and toilet-trained now, so it’s all good. 
I don’t think I care either way if infants have pacifiers, but I get annoyed when I see older kids with pacifiers always in their mouths. I’m talking 2, 3, 4-year-old kids still reliant on pacifiers. Isn’t that too old?
IIRC, The Boy used a pacifier until he was about 6 months old. One day when I put him down for his nap and stuck his binkie in his mouth, he pulled it out and flung it from the crib. I took it as a sign and never offered it again, and he never indicated he wanted it.
The mini-Marli, on the other hand, was a thumb-sucker from uterus to age 6. Whenever I tried to give her a pacifier she’d get mad as hell. Only the thumb would do. Kid had callouses on her thumb from sucking on it.
Do whatever works. A pacifier isn’t going to hurt the kid, and neither is no pacifier; the baby will let you know if he needs one or not.
My oldest had a pacifier until he was about six months old. At that point we lost it, and by the time I could get to the store to get another one he didn’t care anymore. I think he (we)would have been better without it, as I think it might have interfered a bit with the nursing. My fault, not his, of course, but I should have nursed him instead of giving him the pacifier more often. No big crisis, but we did go through a spot of feeding trouble when he was about three months.
Middle kid wouldn’t have a pacifier, nor a bottle. Anything with a plastic nipple wasn’t going into her mouth. The first time we tried the pacifier she gagged and choked and spat it right out. I tried it one more time a few days later, same reaction, never tried it again. She didn’t need it.
Youngest sucked her thumb from before birth, always the left one, all the time. She refrained during school time in kindergarten, then relegated the thumb to nighttime after she started first grade. At some point during that year she let it go. We didn’t try a pacifier with her, but I doubt it would have worked anyway. I think she had that thumb in before they weighed her at birth.
First kid never wanted a pacifier, though I tried it (on the theory that you can take it away later).
Second kid sucked her thumb from birth and didn’t want no stinkin’ pacifier. She just turned 5 and although she made a big effort and stopped several months ago, she still sometimes does it in her sleep.
I sucked my thumb till I was 8 and paid with three years of braces. My sister was a pacifier addict and also needed braces, but not as much. Granted, we both have jaws too small for our teeth, so that doesn’t help.
I started out with the intention of not giving my daughter a pacifier, but after she had been in hospital for about a week, suffering from secondary epilepsy as a result of an intra-cerebral haematoma (brain bleed, in her left temporal lobe), the lactation consultant* told me the dummy would encourage and strengthen her sucking and maybe get her to actually breastfeed (FWIW, she recommended Pigeon brand 3-step pacifiers). The breastfeeding never worked out, as the hospital wouldn’t discharge her until we had some kind of feeding established and she wasn’t getting enough from the breast, so we had to introduce bottles and then she was too lazy to work at the breast! Sigh.
Anyway, HRH is now nearly 15 months old and only gets her pacifier for naptime and bedtime.
*In case you’re wondering why a lactation consultant would be involved for a brain-bleed case, the haematoma was located just below the speech and language area of HRH’s brain, which is the area also responsible for the suck and swallow reflexes - explains why we had so much difficulty getting her to latch on before she was diagnosed.
I didn’t think I’d use a pacifier either, but the Sprout clearly wanted to suck more than was necessary for eating. (I nursed him) So we gave him a pacifier.
At around 5 months, he seemed to be losing interest, so we took the opportunity to take it away. No problem.
I have to say I don’t like them. My eldest was given one to try for an airplane trip when he was three weeks old, but was having none of it. I just breastfed him for the ups and downs, and it worked out fine (if you count us sitting near the toilets, and me falling asleep breastfeeding, him popping off and me waking up to my boob hanging out and a line of people standing around me waiting for the loo… Ah well, it was three weeks post partum and I’d had any modesty beaten out of me anyway!)
That kid got extremely attached to a blanket at about nine months old, and at 12 it is to be found hanging around the house somewhere he’s been recently. But he doesn’t take it out with him and hasn’t since he was about four.
Second kid absolutely loved, loved, loved his thumb! He was not ever offered a pacifier because he was a weak sucker at the breast and I wanted him to get the hang of that first. He did have long crying jags when he was tiny and at the flippy flappy stage and couldn’t keep his hand in his mouth. My mother solved that by flipping him onto his tummy and that was how he slept until he could roll over. All the while I was in a cold sweat about cot death but he took his naps in the living room next to me on a towel on the hard wood floor, and he slept on a towel on our hard thin futon on the floor at night, so he was always within hand’s reach.
He still sucks his thumb at 8 years old but he is cutting it out himself. He never sucks it out of the house and rarely ever except at bed time these days. He does have awful teeth but he has a very narrow head and jaw which the orthodontist says is a typical preemie shape (he asked if he’d been born early, which surprised me.)
I sucked my thumb till I was 11, my mother still sucks hers at 70 years old! (She didn’t know - my Dad told her after they got married that she does it after she goes to sleep! ) and we both have straight teeth and never had braces or anything.
One thing I don’t like about pacifiers is that a toddler can play with the paci in place. In my opinion a thumb is better because it can be washed easily and often, has to be removed from the mouth to play and pick things up, and can never be lost!!
On the other hand, as everyone else has said here, when you are facing the nth night of the kid being inconsolable, you’ll do ANYTHING and should be allowed to do it guilt free (if it doesn’t involve alcohol or a sledgehammer!) See me and the tummy sleeping thing!
Pacifiers appear to be one of those “hot topics” in parenting, with strong opinions on either side. There is a cultural bias that a “good parent” should be able to do without one, but in my opinion, based on reading every parenting book I could get my hands on, I’d say that is just one of those opinions that caters to the need to judge.
As for MaastrichtSon, now five weeks old, yes, we use a pacifier. We use it to diagnose if the baby is hungry, or just wants to suck. Two different needs, equally valid. If he “latches on” to the pacifier, but spits it out after a few seconds, and this repeats about 3-4 times, then that’s a clear cut signal for hunger. So he gets the breast.
If, however, he calmly takes the pacifier and it stays in his mouth, he just wanted to suck, and the pacifier just does the job more efficiently then a finger at this age.
We have tried to teach the baby to suck on his fist, or his fingers, or his wrist, so he could comfort himself, even when we’re not thee to put the pacifier back in his mouth. But the problem is that at this age, they just have far too little control over their hands; heck, babies under four months don’t even understand they have hands, yet. They’ll suck on their fists when it lands in their mouths, but with the next flailing arm movement the baby takes his own comfort away again. So we plan to use a pacifier at least for four months. After that, we’ll see.
The baby calls again, so I gotta go 
As for the “crooked teeth” theory, the Combined Parenting Books say that that can be a problem for thumbsuckers/pacifierusers if they suck beyond age five. But the percentage of kids who do that is* tiny*.
This is pretty much what’s happened with our second girl (seven weeks.) Our first girl, now aged two and a half, was given a dummy a couple of times out of desperation but wasn’t interested. She quickly got through whatever stage it was and started settling well. Later she started sucking her thumb when going to sleep and carrying a particular bear around with her. She gradually lost interest in the bear and now only sleeps with him. Girl two has just been through the same difficult stage with not getting settled and using Mum’s nipples as a comfort device rather than a food source so the dummy was tried again. This time it’s been more successful and she has been drifting off to sleep nicely with it. She’s now getting into a sleep pattern where she sleeps for eight hours continuously each night. I’m hoping we’ll be able to get her off the dummy before she becomes too attached to it.
I’d echo what some of the others have said. I was determined that Niamh would never have a dummy - I hate the look of them, particularly on children that are old enough to be walking around. However, if I learnt one thing quickly and learned it well - any plans you make before the little person arrives are swiftly redrawn once they do!
Niamh suffered with colic terribly and got into the habit of drinking milk to soothe herself. (She was bottle fed). That ended up giving her tummy ache from too much milk, so it was a pretty unpleasant circle for the first few weeks. We found that a dummy was the one thing that helped. She’s now 18 months old and for several months she’s had the dummy only when she goes to bed at night. Or actually when I’m with her by myself on a long car journey and I want her to go to sleep: dummy = long sleep, you see!
My husband was more keen - his argument was he would rather she sucked a dummy which can be eventually removed, than a thumb which we couldn’t.
As with all parenting, you do what you need to and what suits all of you best.
some kids seem to really need something to suck on. china bambina was a howler and after a couple of days she took to a pacifier like a duck to water. Didn’t lose it until after 2, but it was great for her. Oldest twin was big on the pacifier for about 24 months. Youngest twin lost her suckling ability in the NICU. She did take to a pacifier when she was about 18 months old, and used it pretty laxly for about 2 months.
I think it’s a helluva lot more dependant on the child than the parent. One certainly isn’t a bad parent if the child has a strong suckling ability. take it from me, you would much prefer to have a kid that has a pacifier implanted for a couple of years rather than one that can’t suckle.
Hard depends on the kid - and the timing.
My sisters oldest is a pacifier kid - and still uses one at almost four. About the time my sister had the opportunity to get rid of it without much of a struggle, she got pregnant with his brother, my brother in law was out of town a lot, and any struggle was too much. By the time all that settled down, he was almost two, there was a new baby in the house, and there was NO WAY he was giving it up. Then she got breast cancer - and binkie use was a pretty low priority. So at almost four he still has it and its definitely a habit that is hard to break - he (like my daughter was) is capable of raging tantrums that can last hours. So you need to get rid of it before its a emotional habit or a power struggle. However, in her case it was sort of extenuating circumstance on top of extenuating circumstance.
My daughter sucked her thumb as an infant, but stopped the minute her thumb didn’t fit the same way because teeth came in - for which I am grateful. She would have had problems breaking the habit - habits are really hard for her.
In my, non-parental, opinion, yes. In my mother’s opinion, if the kid is taking the pacifier out to talk, the kid is too old to still be using a pacifier.
I think I’ve read some parenting expert who suggests that if you take tha pacifier away between a year and 18 months or so, kid will adjust easily. If you wait past that time, kid gets attached and it (may) become a major hassle to get the kid to give up the pacifier.
I never had the strong aversion to pacifiers that some people do, so I tried to give one to QSon when he was little. He was completely uninterested. It baffled me how many people complimented us for not giving him a binky. QDaughter, on the other hand, is an enormous fan of her “boppy” (her word for it). She is approaching two, so boppy use is mostly limited to naptime and bedtime and the period between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. when she’s just cranky. I figure I’ll make an effort to get rid of it when she’s three.
Dweezil wouldn’t take a pacifier. I wished he would, as he had the 24-hour-a-day-nonstop-screaming-don’t-ever-sleep sort of colic for the first 3 months, and literally the only 2 things that shut him up were either a ride in the car, or a breast. I offered pacifiers fairly often but phooey, he wanted none of it. He did ultimately find his thumb and as others have noted, those are harder to take away (on the plus side, they’re impossible to lose also!). Fortunately he gradually weaned himself off of the thumb by about 6 years of age; he never was a constant thumbsucker and it doesn’t appear to have done much dental damage.
Moon Unit… as a preemie with feeding issues, we didn’t ever give her a pacifier as an infant. We were too concerned with getting her to learn to eat, then to nurse directly from the breast. Once that was accomplished (by about a month old), it didn’t occur to us to give her a paci.
When she was 4 months old, and I was ready to go back to work, the sitter suggested a paci might be useful occasionally. She loved the thing. And we went :smack: over our own blindness: a month earlier, we went on a long car trip and she screamed the entire time. By then, the feeding issues had been long over and a paci might have made the trip more tolerable for all of us.
We were fortunate that at 13 months or so, when she weaned herself off the breast, she didn’t seem to miss when we took the pacifiers away.
I do think a toddler is too old for one of them. But parents of older kids who still use them doubtless have fairly good reasons for it, I’m just not privy to them.