DUMMY DEAREST

I'm so proud - proud that my nearly three year old has just settled down for her fifth night dummy free!  Gasp, horror, "she's nearly THREE" I hear all you dummy opposers cry.  Yes yes, I know, she's quite old to still be using a dummy, and before actually becoming a parent, I knew (as I "knew" many things about parenting back then) that my children would NEVER use dummies.  So here I am, almost three years into parenting and getting excited that my eldest is finally getting towards the end of her "dummy days" whilst my baby happily still sucks away with hers in her cot.

Of course like anything to do with childcare, there are lots of opinions both for and against dummies.

The FORS include

Dummies soothe and settle (and ..., you're telling me there's something wrong with that?)

Sucking is a pleasant and calming sensation for babies - fine with me.

Sucking a comforter, albeit a dummy or some other object, and can help to make young children and babies feel safe - this is a good thing surely.  

A tool to prevent your babe putting other undesirable objects in their mouth.  Yep, I often pop in said dummy as an alternative to leaves, wrappers, old chewing gum and last week, a cigarette butt, that my baby offers up to be orally tried and tested.

And then there's that blissful moment of silence.  You pop this cheap little piece of plastic and rubber into  your bawling babe's mouth and it all stops and you can resume a normal breathing pattern.   Yes yes yes, perhaps selfish on the parental part, but this is always the clincher for me, I'm not good with continual crying.

and the AGAINSTS

Your child may get upset when the dummy is misplaced!   Totally understandable.  I get upset when the dummy is misplaced!

You run the risk of your baby becoming dependent on its dummy to get to sleep.  Fair enough observation, this happened to both my girls so I just made sure they had a dummy there, or I took a spare one to bed with me (I have done the searching around on the floor by the light of a mobile phone thing too many times).  Yes, there were a few nights (and with the youngest, QUITE a few nights, where I'd have to rise from my comfortable, cosy bed to answer the "where's my dummy" cry, but honestly, I'd trade waking for a quick moment of "putting the plug back in" for having to get up and "rock your babe back to sleep for hours" any day! (Please note, I'm not saying it's really one of the other).

Children who have dummies are more likely to get ear infections - hmmmmm, most likely a myth from my brief web research but obviously I'm no medic.  However, as a child I suffered constantly from ear infections, and I was not a dummy user so I would put this one down to "you get what you get"

The child may develop a problem with their speech (IF, they have the dummy in whilst talking).  Really! I would assume anyones' speech would be hindered when trying to talk with something (especially the relative size of a dummy) in their mouth.  Umm, perhaps I have an answer for this one!  Ask your child to take the dummy out when they are trying to say something?  Wow, speech problem cured!

Dummys don't look so good.  In their childhood years, your little one's face is perhaps the most beautiful of all, and to cover some of that gorgeousness up with a large plastic object jiggling about with constant rhythmic action might not be the most visually pleasing.  But for me, necessity overrules aesthetics on many occasions.

So those are a few of the opinions that there are out there.  I suppose for me, what has really been the real reason for dummy use in our household has been the soothing effect it has had on both us and our children.  Part of me would still like to be the parent that never needed to use a dummy, who could restore peace to a fraught situation without the help of a little teat shaped friend, but that isn't the case.  Using  dummies has brought calm and reassurance to my children, and made us more relaxed parents around them.  To me, THAT is what is important.

.... having said all of that,  I might try and get my baby to loose her dummy a little sooner than nearly her third birthday!!