Since I’ve started reading parenting blogs, I’ve come to realise that you shouldn’t feel like you have to justify any decision you make when it comes to your own parenting style – natural birth vs cesarean, home birth vs hospital, breast vs bottle, baby-led weaning vs spoon feeding, co-sleeping vs own room… But some topics come up time and time again and sometimes you just need a rant. And right now I need to rant about dummies.
It was something we thought about quite a lot during our antenatal classes. I was planning on breastfeeding and we were told that introducing a dummy (or bottle) in the first few weeks could cause nipple confusion and create problems with breastfeeding. Also we didn’t want our child to become too reliant on it but figured it would be easier to deal with than thumb sucking – you can take a dummy away but you can’t chop your child’s thumb off! We both knew people who sucked their thumbs well through secondary school and a year or two with a dummy didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. We were relatively open-minded about it and, although we didn’t want to introduce one too early, we bought a pack to have at home just in case.
The dummies weren’t packed in the hospital bag and we spent the first few days of Jenson’s life in hospital, so he didn’t have one in the beginning. When we got home from hospital, we thought we’d use it as a stop-gap in-between feeds. We were getting used to preparing feeds and sometimes he needed something to comfort him while we were getting the bottle ready. He started to use it more and more as he grew colicky and he’s continued to use it through teething.
Fortunately, he doesn’t rely on it. He can fall asleep with or without it, play for hours at a time without a glance at one and sometimes he even uses it as a toy. So why so defensive? I’m fed up of people telling me to “take that plug out of his mouth”. People who even had children themselves. Did they manage to get by without one? If so, well done them, but every baby is different. It winds me up something rotten when someone coos at him and he smiles at them only for them to say that they can’t see his smile behind his dummy. Really?! You can’t see his smile here?!
Likewise, it bothers me when we’re out in the cold and he’s all wrapped up and people move his hood or ask to take his hat off so they can see his face. Are people really that lacking in common sense? You can see his face just fine in this super-scrumptious hat.
Slightly off topic there, but you get the gist. The final straw came the other day when I posted this on Instagram, which in turn linked to my blog’s Facebook page…
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I got a comment saying “YES, without the plug” (from someone I know IRL!).
Woah woah woah! First of all, if you choose to answer that kind of rhetorical question, you say “no way, he’s the cutest. It’s not possible to be any cuter.” Secondly what the actual fuck? It took every ounce of strength I had not to tell said person to fuck off on my blog’s Facebook page.
If you Google “should I give my baby a dummy”, it’ll come back with over a million results. It’s a hotly debated topic but you know what? For every new study claiming that dummies delay speech development, there’s ancient research suggesting that dummies help prevent cot death. There are also claims that they can damage their teeth and even cause ear infections, which I’ve gotta say I find hard to believe. You know what the deciding factor is when it comes to Jenson using dummies? Is he happy? Yes! His dummies have proved an invaluable source of comfort through colic, teething and unsettled nights, so I am definitely in favour of using dummies – provided they’re not used to “shut up” children. We always try to soothe him another way first and never shove one in just to keep him quiet.
And with that, I give you a bunch of photos of Jenson sleeping, smiling, reading and playing, all with a dummy in his mouth. So there!
Not sure what I tried to prove there but whatevs! Oh, and FYI, we started out with MAM dummies, which are fine, but now use Tommee Tippee because they come in more fun colours!
Both of mine have a dummy. Breastfed my first for 12 months, still going at 13 months. My first had it from 6/8 weeks old, my second from about 9 months and was her own choice. I can be quite strict about dummy usage (less so with my second!), but was kind of against them before i became a parent, but I had no knowledge of them really. I have no idea how babies sleep without one! Honestly do not! Haha! Luckily I have experienced very little negative parenting comments from people, except my mum who said she’d get a baby to sleep without a dummy. What? By letting them cry it out for hours or however you got me to sleep 30+ years ago when I screamed constantly apparently! I do hate how people, parents, mums can be so critical of other mums when they perhaps have never been in that position or are simply a different person with different coping mechanisms.
Oh, and my 2.5 yo still has his, at bedtime and overnight only. He’ll give it up when he’s ready and if it means I get a full night sleep from both then, crack on!
Exactly! I vote for sleep every time 🙂