Before I became a mom, it was easy for me to have an opinion on pacifiers. I figured I would use one with Lily, mostly because they think it reduces the risk of SIDS, but I was still a bit wary of having her become too dependent on it. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of weaning her off of it one day, and mostly didn’t want to find myself relying on it to hush her up if I were too tired to try anything else to settle her down.
AFTER becoming a mom, however, I have seen the light! Pacifiers are amazing things because newborns really struggle to themselves down, and sucking REALLY helps. We saw this early on while still in the hospital – if you got your finger anywhere near Lily’s lips, she’d latch right on with great force! The lactation consultant suggested we let her suck our fingers and delay introducing a pacifier for a few weeks so that it didn’t interfere with her feeding.
That was all well and good when we didn’t mind standing over her and letting her do this, but after 8 days, we caved. We just couldn’t stand to see her so upset and unable to calm herself when nothing was truly wrong. She pretty readily accepted it…
…but had some difficulty using it the first time!
Although she improved her technique and used it for a while, she has recently decided that she really doesn’t want a paci. Now we find ourselves in the awkward position of trying to convince a baby to use a pacifier! Don’t think we’re on the wrong track, though, because she desperately wants to suck to soothe herself. But, the object of her affection is elusive…her thumb! Poor little Lily spits out her paci, but has desperately been trying to suck her thumb. Unfortunately for her, she can’t figure out how to keep her other fingers from holding onto it! Poor baby has to settle for shoving almost her whole hand in her mouth.
In our attempts to help her out, we have tried other paci’s with no luck…
I took a video of me trying to convince her to take a paci;
For the record, this does not appear to be just a wise aversion to the Gamecocks…she also rejected Piglet! So, we are out of ideas…I am afraid that once she gets her fine motor skills up to par, we’ll be the humbled parents of a thumb-sucker. Oh well! :-)
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2 comments:
She is so beautiful. I can't wait to meet her. Don't get too discouraged with the paci fight. We had to try out different pacis before we found the kind that Jackson liked the best. There were certain ones that he wouldn't take. I wish I knew which kind we settled on. Just try a few different ones and see what happens. Hang in there!
What Curtis said was that we had to convince Jackson that he didn't want his thumb and did in fact want the paci - you can't throw a thumb away! He didn't really take it on his own until 4 or 5 months. Before that we were just holding it in there! Keep fighting the thumb fight - you'll win eventually :) She is beautiful!
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