The Dummy Dilemma

Image source

When buying for your baby, one of the most important things that a parent has to decide is whether or not they want to give their baby a dummy. All throughout my pregnancy, I had made up my mind that I was not going to give Little A a dummy especially since I knew that I wanted to try breastfeeding, as it is not recommended for breastfed babies before at least six weeks. This is because it can effect the mother’s milk supply as the baby needs to suckle as much as possible to establish the supply whereas if the baby cries and you have already fed the baby, you would be inclined towards giving baby the dummy.

Bearing this in mind, I did not even bother adding dummies to the list especially hearing from my Mum what a nightmare I had been when she tried to wean me off my dummy, I didn’t want that with Little A.

When Little A was born, I had suggestions from all corners to give her a dummy, adamant as ever – I refused. I remember taking her to the hospital at nearly a month old for her heart scan and the first thing the Sonographer asked me, ‘where’s her dummy?’ alarm bells began ringing in my ears, we were here for her scan – what was the need for a dummy? But then I understood it was to help keep Little A remain calm and still as the scan was going to be long. Dummyless, I proceeded to hold Little A’s hand and she displayed her best behaviour, giving me an ego boost that my child didn’t need one.

Again, at her first immunisations, we were asked about her dummy. Everyone just assumes babies will have dummies but that is not the case for all babies!

A few weeks went by, we remained dummyless.  Little A began using me as her human dummy which she did quite often and sometimes made me feel utmost aw but at times I’d have to wince in pain but I still persevered and stayed away from the dummy, reading up on google the cons of a dummy and convincing myself that it was not the right option.

Image source

Until…

She learn to screech when crying, she would literally let out an unexplainable scream! I still thought to myself, that’s absolutely normal, no need for the dummy – babies cry, it’s their way of communicating.. sure…

And then I’d get, ‘I told you so’ from those around me who insisted I should have given Little A a dummy from birth. She’d have a clean nappy, wasn’t hungry – there was just no explanation for the random cries other than Colic which is hard to diagnose, it could be that, it could be nothing. My health visitor suggested that I should give the dummy a go – she might not even take it. There’s me sat thinking ‘she might not even take it? Why what’s not to take? Put it in her mouth and she’ll suck, simple!’ Well… it really wasn’t that straightforward, it never was and deep down I’m glad!

No matter what shape or brand the dummies were, Little A was not having it. If you wanted to make her cry then give her the dummy! The complete opposite to what the dummy is actually intended for! It was as if though she was screaming at us ‘how dare you put this thing in my mouth that has no milk!’ Either she’d cry or just push it out of her mouth.

On the bright side, I don’t have to go through the difficult phase of weaning her from the dummy as I have come to know that this can be difficult emotionally for both parent and child. But being brutally honest, every time she rejected the dummy, I couldn’t have been more happier inside – I was so proud of her! I just never wanted her to take one but perhaps the attempts were because of what one might call ‘peer pressure’. Also, as a parent you always end up questioning your decisions, I had started to wonder whether or not my decision to not give her the dummy from the beginning was right or not.

However, now when I look back, I don’t regret not giving her the dummy at birth, I think it’s wonderful that I had the ‘magic’ touch that calmed her down, she only used me as her dummy for maybe three months, now Little A is more independent and doesn’t need me as her dummy so that also proves the comments ‘you’re creating a bad habit’ that I received wrong.

I guess all things pass with time, you just have to be patient! Patience – this word becomes your best friend in no time when you step into parenthood but this is another topic for another post on another day!