Should you give your baby a dummy?

A dummy can be a life-saver when it comes to soothing a crying baby. But as with all things in life, there are pros and cons of giving your baby a dummy. We take a look:

How to choose the right dummy

• Find a dummy that is soft but firm and cylindrical, with a round end to enable tongue cupping. This is the tongue’s ability to grip the dummy when it is in your baby’s mouth. Tongue cupping is very important for successful breastfeeding and speech development.
• The round end of the dummy should reach the soft, high palate to stimulate sucking, as well as the limbic (emotional) system of the brain, which will release all your “happy hormones”. The limbic system is the “feel-good” area of the brain. Therefore, sucking will help to calm your baby when she is stressed.
• Dummies that are too flat or too short can lead to abnormal tongue movement, which can be difficult to overcome during the transition to breast or bottle-feeding.
• The dummy should have a big, soft shield to prevent your baby from swallowing it. The shield will stimulate all the nerve endings around your baby’s mouth and will assist with lip closure.
• The dummy should be a single unit without any loose parts and should have a grip your baby can hold onto. This will support the hands-to-mouth and midline positioning, self-soothing, and self-regulation actions, and help to develop the integration of the left and right brain.

4 Benefits of dummies

1. A dummy can soothe your baby and help her get to sleep; if disturbed at night, she’s likely to start sucking it and drift off again to sleep.
2. Dummies can be sterilised; fingers and thumbs can’t.
3. Dummies are far less harmful to the dental occlusion (the contact between the teeth of the lower- and upper jaw) than sucking on fingers.
4. Sucking a dummy gives your child a sense of security and comfort.

Keep the following in mind

• Avoid letting your child use a dummy as an instant remedy; rather try to find the source of your baby’s crying.
• Try not to let your child use a dummy regularly; see it as more of a short-term solution.
• Never dip your child’s dummy into something sweet; this can cause tooth decay.
• If your child is still using a dummy when she starts to speak, try to discourage her from having the dummy in her mouth when she tries to talk.
• It’s fine to fall back on it when all else fails, but it’s not a good idea to start off each day by popping a dummy into your baby’s mouth.