Moms who breastfeed/fed - quick question for you

almostjones

Did you follow the no pacifiers rule in the beginning?  I'm really teetering on this.  Just curious - if you used pacis from the beginning, do you think it wreaked havoc on your baby's latch?

I am not anti-pacis at all and would rather not establish a pattern of comfort nursing from the beginning...if that's possible.  But I want to BF for the first 6 months at least, so I thought I'd ask your experiences.

Thank you!

Suzi-G-

We did offer pacis from the very beginning.  I don't think it had any effect either way on him, but Cooper was an easy going baby and not a big comfort sucker.  

I tried one in the hospital, he rejected it completely.  When we got home we gave him the Soothies ones we had bought and he liked those but couldn't keep them in his mouth well at first.  He would only take Soothies until he was about 3 months (?) old then he suddenly switched to preferring the Nuk ones.  He still likes his Nuks but he doesn't have to have it. 

My opinion (and I know that's worth a lot, right?) is to listen to your baby and play it by ear.  And really that's my opinion on all things baby related, you may have the best ideas in the world and they might not work on your kid, so be flexible.  You may never feel the need to give a paci, if you can calm her just by picking her up then don't bother shoving something in her mouth everytime she squawks.  But if she loves to suck, it might be the right solution.  Or she might reject it.   If you are having trouble getting baby to latch but she loves the paci then stop giving it and work on your latch.   You don't have to make all or nothing decisions right now. 

newinhouston

Suzi-G-:

My opinion (and I know that's worth a lot, right?) is to listen to your baby and play it by ear.  And really that's my opinion on all things baby related, you may have the best ideas in the world and they might not work on your kid, so be flexible.  You may never feel the need to give a paci, if you can calm her just by picking her up then don't bother shoving something in her mouth everytime she squawks.  But if she loves to suck, it might be the right solution.  Or she might reject it.   If you are having trouble getting baby to latch but she loves the paci then stop giving it and work on your latch.   You don't have to make all or nothing decisions right now. 

 

I think this is right on point. Just see what your baby likes. Elena didn't like pacis at all but in the last few weeks she decided that she likes to suck for a minute before falling sleep. Offer her a pacifier when she's fully awake and she won't take it no matter how hard you try. 

We did wait 4 weeks before introducing a bottle (with breastmilk ).. She now switches between breast and bottle with no problem.

brideonjuly8

We did, and in the very very beginning it was okay and he always had a great latch and it didn't effect anything.  He really loved to suck for soothing.

kreeper611

We gave Cooper a paci.  But nothing much bothered him.  He had formula the first week also, and it didn't make any difference.

Now he still takes the Soothie pacis, but doesn't really like any others.  What's funny is that he's got a natural suck reflex - so he looks like he's sucking a paci all the time.

readyforbaby

DS had a paci within the first few hours.  I don't think it caused any confusion.  We did wait until 4 weeks to give his first bottle though.  DS does love his paci though.  We have weaned him down to sleeping only and he is doing well with that.  DS is a very easy going kid though.

mom2ll

Both my kids are suckers   Luca did have a latch issue.  However, his latch was an issue from day 1.  Lila had a great latch and used the paci too.  I nursed L1 for 4 months and L2 for 3.  We are about to take the paci away from L2.. 

darva

I did with all three girls with no issues.  Samantha never took one, but it was offered from the beginning until I finally just gave up.  She's a pretty content kid though, so she doesn't ever 'need' it.  She does suck on her blanket though to go to sleep. 

Kaitlyn and Micaela both had pacifiers and weaned relatively easy... But they were both kids that NEEDED the pacifier.  They needed the comfort quite often.  

SigmundsGirl

Before we went to the hospital I said I would wait to give Evan a paci for at least a month. That idea went out the window the day he was born. (As did the phrase "I will never...")  :-) He had both a paci and a bottle in the hospital and never had any problems breastfeeding.

 

Suzi-G-

I will amend my response and say that if I had had supply problems or my milk was slow to come in I would have been much more hesitant to offer a paci early on.  Sometimes your body needs all that extra sucking to stimulate production.  I was insta-cow though. 

KNJepp

Suzi-G-:

I will amend my response and say that if I had had supply problems or my milk was slow to come in I would have been much more hesitant to offer a paci early on.  Sometimes your body needs all that extra sucking to stimulate production.  I was insta-cow though. 

Suzi is right - the one thing about comfort-sucking is that it's a great supply booster.  

We waited to give C a pacifier.  He would accept one under duress for a period of about two weeks, and has totally rejected them ever since.  There have been times when we have questioned whether waiting to give him one was a good idea or not, because of this, but ultimately, it probably was the best choice.  He didn't have latch issues, but we did eventually discover he was having some difficulties sucking/nursing effectively that we had to overcome, which also impacted my supply for a while. 

There are definitely times when it would be really nice if he could be comforted by a pacifier, but I don't know if he really would have been into it either, since he hasn't shown any interest in sucking his thumb/hands/fingers either, other than to relieve itching gums. On the upside, we don't have to worry about breaking a paci habit.

KelleyA

We offered one to DD#1, she never took it.  DD#2 will suck on anything, but we haven't offered her one...I think she'd like it WAY too much.  I'm not keen on pacifiers so I'd rather not use them. The lactation consultants at our hospital recommend waiting 2 weeks to introduce a bottle and 6 weeks to introduce a pacifier.  They actually recommend pacifiers as they can help reduce the risks of SIDS.

cali_girl92504

We did - we didn't introduce a bottle or pacifier until she was 3 weeks old. We haven't had any nipple confusion or anything.

rayskit10

We offered pacis with both kids. Truitt loved it (had it until he turned 3) and was also a comfort nurser.

Mathis refused the paci from the start and only went through a brief period where I was the human paci. Of course it seemed like a freaking lifetime when I was going through it but it was less than 6 weeks.

My point in the comparison is I think those that are comfort suckers might take a paci but also nurse for comfort. No matter how much a baby loves their paci, there is nothing like mommy

But both my kids transitioned from boob to paci to bottle easily. It never messed with the latch. I think I did facilitate this by nursing often in the beginning, though. 

almostjones

Thanks so much for all of the great perspectives, once again!  You ladies are the best!

alliwalton

SigmundsGirl:

Before we went to the hospital I said I would wait to give Evan a paci for at least a month. That idea went out the window the day he was born. (As did the phrase "I will never...")  :-) He had both a paci and a bottle in the hospital and never had any problems breastfeeding.

 

 I also did not want to give my DD a pacifer until she was a month but that and no bottle also went out the window when she went to NICU for a few hours.  The minute she came back up to us, I hid the pacifer and was up all night because she wanted to suck/graze.  Her pedi came in and told us babies like to suck and introducing a pacifer is fine.  If she is a grazer then your going to be nursing all the time.  When we gave her a paci and she was BF every 2-3 hours.  I never had a problem with her latching.  She will take anything to suck on, NUK, Soothies, Avent and her wrist.

Quizzle

Vivian had a pacifier and bottle pretty quickly too, because of NICU time. I wasn't thrilled, but there wasn't much I could do about it. She last had the pacifier (a soothie) at the hospital the day we went home when she was freaking out as we tried to take some photos.

I tried to give it to her for a few minutes yesterday and she just spit it out. Not interested.

 

She's a bit of a comfort sucker, as well, and has recently started falling asleep and comfort sucking while latched on. Her latch is also marginal.... But I'm also a cow like Suzi and I think that's part of the problem. I have so much and it comes out so fast she likes to bite down a lot. Ow. 

I'm not opposed to a pacifier, but I want to get her latch more worked out before I really find one. I also haven't given her a bottle but once since she's been home, when she wanted to nurse too soon. 

Cajun_gal

Breastfeeding failed for us, but not because he couldn't latch on.  He latched great, I just didn't produce enough.  So, with that said, we offered pacis from the beginning, and he also went from bottle to breast well too.  I don't think nipple confusion is a fake thing though since I do know of some babies that refuse anything other than the breast and vice versa.

duchessII81

We held off on the paci for the first couple of weeks because we were trying to BF. We didn't let them give her one while she was in the NICU. 

She takes a paci at nap time now.

lilycat

We thought we needed to do this with our first. Turned out we didn't.

With our second, we offered the paci as a soother. We had unrelated trouble with nursing due to hospital stays.

Both my kids gave up pacis by 6 mos. of age. Both continued nursing past that age. 

ddr262

Aiden was under the lights for jaundice and they gave him one then to soothe him. He took it a few other times when we got home but wasn't very interested and pretty much rejected it. While we had some BF issues in the beginning, I don't think the pacifier was the culprit because our problems had to do with him being a super lazy nurser and not with the latch. 

 

Erika&Brian

Offered paci from beginning with both boys and no issues stemming from them.

nicgillette

My DD is 6 weeks old now and we didn't offer a pacifier for about 4 weeks and then my DH was the only one who would give it to her.  She doesn't really take it from me now and only uses it to go to sleep sometimes.  We don't let her have it during the day while she is awake.  We try to only use it in extreme situations like if she is crying in her car seat and we still have quite a while until we reach our destination.  By no means is she dependent on it and it has not affected her latch at all!