DUMMIES or PACIFIERS

Dummies... I don't like them.

Although the SIDS campaign say they help prevent cot deaths, I'm not that sure about it.
Well, I'm not allowed to say anything different anyway and who am I to go against a well researched campaign?

If a client really believes that and wishes to use a dummy, I will naturally follow their wish.
After all, I am helping them look after their baby. It's not mine.

Maybe I am a little old fashioned, but I see problems because of the dummy usage; let alone thinking that children in pushchairs look awful with a dummy in their mouth.

Apart from the sight of them offending me, I go to families whose baby has sleep problems and find that once they fall asleep with a dummy in mouth, the dummy then falls out and and when they turn their head in their sleep and they feel the dummy on their cheek and wake up frustrated that they can't get it back and wake upset.
Of course, the child has probably become dependent on having the dummy for comfort by then.

There is the old question of.. giving the child "buck teeth".
I am not a dentist, so cannot say that is so; but logic would make me lean that way.

So, if I am asked to use a dummy, I will remove it as soon as the baby is asleep and hope they learn not to rely on it.

I had such a case recently, when a dummy was used to pacify the baby, when all it needed was adequate winding.
Better to get the wind out early on with a little more time and patience, than letting that wind pass further down the gut and causing distress later in the bowel, by then you can do nothing but wait for it to appear at the bottom end.

As for campaigns, they are all well and good, but we must remember, that government dict-acts cater to the lowest common denominator. As they do with the issue of sterilising bottles, which they don't in many countries such as America or Australia.
But that's for another time.