My latest theory is that Lucy is an easily over-stimulated baby. (Not surprising, considering how her parents react to over-stimulation?) I think every baby book I read discusses over-stimulation (which is helpful) and they recommend a pacifiers for an over-stimulated baby (also helpful) but “not until breast-feeding is well-established” (less helpful for the present moment). So, what is a mommy to do? And how do we feel about pacifiers?
Here is a list of pros and cons from what I’ve read:
Pros
* young babies need to suck, and pacifiers give them a way to do that
* pacifiers help them to settle down to sleep if they are over-stimulated
* if you wean babies off of pacifiers by three months, they won’t get addicted
Cons
* will the baby get addicted? “_Happiest Baby_”:/news/2006/happiest-baby-on-the-block/ recommends starting to wean them off of pacifiers at _one_ month
* risk of nipple-confusion if introduced too early
* what can help the over-stimulated baby until “breastfeeding is well-established” and they can take a pacifier? and when exactly is that?
These are my questions. Not terribly deep, but there it is. I feel like sort of a boring person today.
A pleasant anecdote: this afternoon, we tried the mid-feeding diaper change (recommended by several of you in comments here at BNN) and then I simply put Lucy down after her being awake nursing, changing, and burping for one hour. That has seemed to work for two naps! Jon also cleaned off our venetian blinds (which we rarely use in our bedroom) and put them down so the room is darker for Lucy to sleep in during the day. Who knows if this will keep “working” or not? But at least she has been peaceful for two naps today, and we have been peaceful too.
until breastfeed is well established you can use your thumb, but you are hooked to her. Maddy has never taken to the pacifier, she would rather the breast, hence her weight! How is breastfeeding going? are you finding what works for you?
We actually let Benjamin have the pacifier before breastfeeding was well established and it didn’t cause any problems with nipple confusion. Our tactic with it was, we would give it to him until he calmed down and then take it out. He never got addicted to it at all. Sometimes now, if he’s crawling around and finds one in his toys, he’ll pop it in his mouth and start sucking – I just take it away and put it up and he doesn’t even care. We also used the finger tactic since he had a tendancy to lose the pacifier.
Breastfeeding is going much better these past few days since I decided to relax. I figured that if it is a choice between doing lots of tricks to maximize milk production or enjoying breastfeeding, it is better for me to just enjoy it. And Lucy seems happy and well-fed — at least, we’ve had no complaints from her. :)
Jon has had some success giving Lucy a pacifier for a few minutes the past couple of nights. She doesn’t seem to want to take one from me, maybe because she is smart enough to know that I actually have the ability to feed her. We do the finger trick too, but sometimes it gets a bit tiring.
We’ve had a mixed bag on the pacifier journey. Only Chet would take them, the others wouldn’t but then got their own “thing” instead. Henry is nearly 4 and STILL sucks him thumb. Riley played with her bellybutton until she was 7 and Miles, we’re just not sure what the heck his thing is…he is a mystery, that one. It seems though that he is an “extended nurser” meaning he is going on 2 and finds no reason a’tall to give up nursing. So maybe that IS his thing.
I think the whole nipple confusion issue is overblown. That’s just my cranky judgemental opinion though, not based in medical fact.
At least you can take the pacifier away later…other comfort things tend to stay around longer. Just don’t let the kid have it until she can speak. THAT is scary…our next door neighbor’s child came over one day and had 2 with him. He was nearly 4 and he had to keep taking it out of his mouth to tell me stuff. hmm…here’s my cranky judgemental side again…
peace tonight!
ang
Our rule always was to only offer the pacifier if nothing else worked (i.e. he didn’t need to eat, didn’t want cuddling, etc.). Also, we would take it away once he calmed down. Later on, his comfort object became a blanket that he sleeps with. Our rule with that one is that he can only have it in the crib – that way he’ll never be one of those kids who drags their blankie everywhere with them. Anyway – those tactics have worked well for us – he is not overly attached to anything, although I will admit, there were times when he was younger that I did wish he was more attached so that I could just “plug him” to get him to be quiet!
I subscribed to your blog feed and comments feed and hope that’s OK and you won’t get too annoyed with a near-stranger (to Ann anyways) blabbing on occasion… i will try to stay relevant.
you know, it’s amazing how quickly you forget these things when your kids got older. I hope that’s encouraging…. you *will* forget all your anxiety about nursing, about the pacifier, etc. Your blog brings it all to life again for me :o) and it’s startling to me that I was dealing with those issues just two years ago today, about to be released from the NICU.
for what it’s worth, all the kids in the NICU where my twins stayed were given the pacifier (well before even being allowed to nurse) unless the parents EXPLICITLY forbade it.
The lactation consultant there said to me, in essence, that 99%+ of babies have no problem with nipple confusion and 99%+ of moms have no problem with milk supply without pumping or switching sides/positions… (she did say those with twins have to work at it, though, and are more likely to need to try something.)
…the whole anxiety is over the 1% or less of babies that do have problems. Because if you have that 1% kind of baby with nipple confusion, you don’t want to start the pacifier early, even if the other 99% of babies don’t have any problem at all, and the other 99% of moms can tell you it’s no big deal.
She thought most of the “problems” in her own experience (this is in NICU and hospital classes, largely) came with young and/or busy moms with little to no support, who “wanted to nurse” but were ready to give up when problems presented themselves, who were ready to stick a bottle in their kid’s mouth the minute it seemed like the baby wanted to nurse past 20 minutes, who found the pacifier an easier way to soothe for the MOM than rocking/bouncing, etc.
All of my babies were given a pacifier early on (first two around 1 or 2 months, the twins in NICU for the first month and occasionally thereafter.) None of them had any problem with nipple confusion. Two of them could care less for the pacifier and it never helped. The other two could have easily made a habit of it. But I couldn’t stand the plug. I didn’t like how it looked, I didn’t want to deal with dependency, etc – so after a few rounds – and much misgiving – we pitched them all.
We eventually found other soothing techniques. The first lived in the sling. The second liked to be draped over our shoulder and patted on the butt and walked around the house. The third wanted to be swaddled and loudly shushed. The fourth, to our horrified relief, did better being left alone for about the first year (!!), and then later rocked to sleep and/or talked to in a quiet calm voice.
…And the quiet calm voice wakes up the third child. :o) As you can see, it’s still a work in progress. You might even stumble backwards into what works for Lucy, as we did with our second and fourth.
Kelly, I’m super-glad you are reading and posting on our blog! I’m honored that you’d want to read what is going on in Boyd-land. And I really appreciate your perspective on the nipple confusion thing. I have been wondering, especially since I’ve never actually met anyone whose child had nipple confusion, how common it actually is. Your lactation consultant sounds like she had some good insight. Right now, Lucy isn’t taking the pacifier very much, but sometimes Jon can get her to take it for a few minutes if she wants to suck (and my nipples appreciate the break!). She doesn’t seem confused by the pacifier. If anything, she is confused by my knuckle which always seems to be in the way when she is latching on and she ends up sucking on it for awhile. :) But, luckily, no milk comes from my knuckle so she gives up pretty quickly.
I’d also add: “Luckily, no milk comes from your knuckle, because that would make you a very strange woman.” :)