Pacifiers and Thumb-sucking - Revisited

June 2009 - My well-meaning mother states, "It is better for a child to have a pacifier because you can throw it away. You cannot cut off his thumb, Danielle." Yes, that was my goal, to remove my child's thumb. Where does she come up with this stuff? She has said this so many times, I was starting to think I was setting my child up for a lifetime of addiction because I was so quick to place a pacifier in his mouth rather than let him soothe himself. Thankfully, I never pulled his thumb out of his mouth and replaced with a pacifier. I figured if he wanted it in there and he was quiet, it worked for me. However, if he started to get fussy, I popped in a paci.

March 2010 - All my worries about addiction to pacifiers was totally unfounded. Not to mention, my total embarrassment of having photos taken with one in DZ's mouth. Dustin decided to give up the pacifier not long after I wrote the above post. I never had to throw it away or any other possibly damaging action because he made the decision himself. He did the same thing with breastfeeding. At about 10 months, he decided he was done and preferred exploring the world to quiet time nursing with Mama. 

As you may know, DZ is 17 months old and has all of his teeth. His first choppers came in at 2 months of age. Since then, he has chewed on anything he can find to try and get his teeth to come in. Although, he often has his fingers in his mouth, he never really adopted the sucking habit. 


Bottom line: All that worrying I did when he was younger was just wasted energy. Now that I have learned to follow my instincts and filter the advice, Motherhood has become a little easier.