Pacifiers

I wasn't sure about using a pacifier, but the tiny piece of plastic has become a new best friend. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends them to reduce the incidence of SIDS, but also says to wait to introduce them until 1 month of age if mom is breastfeeding.

We started with the Soothie pacifier (at about 3 weeks) because the hospital uses them and I heard that a lot of people loved them. While the Girl sucked on it just fine, it is pretty heavy and kept falling out of her mouth. We quickly got to playing the game of putting her to sleep with the pacifier and it falling out seconds later. Plus, it is round and easily rolls out of the crib and on to the floor.

We had been given other pacifiers as gifts and I was contemplating trying another one when some good friends confirmed that babies really need a "pacifier try-out". They told me to buy several different kinds and have the Girl try them - they said she would just "slurp" in the one she liked best. Who knew?

At 8 weeks we finally had the trial. We started with the RazBaby Keep-it-Kleen because we had them. A HUGE improvement over the Soothie, but kind of hard to put in her mouth with only one hand. After trying the Mamm, Avent, Gerber and Gerber Nuk .... the winner is ... Gerber Nuk!

It used to be that the Girl would wake up around 5:00am and we would try to give her the paci to buy a few more minutes of sleep. It might have worked for 3 minutes. The first morning with the Nuk, it bought us over an HOUR. Worth a million bucks!