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Breastfeeding and dummies

My LO is 4 weeks and 4 days and has recently become a real pickle when settling at night, fussing and having to come to me where she feeds for a few minutes to fall asleep. I am so exhausted on top of this that I'm considering giving her a dummy. She is really well established with feeding and hasn't had any problems with latching on. She also has a formula feed most nights with my OH so has fed from a teat, I'm just worried that a dummy may undo all our hard work and interfere with BF.

Does anyone else give their LO a dummy and found any problems?

Fay and Florence 4 weeks and 4 days x

Replies

  • We use a dummy to help settle Toby (6 weeks old) and it's great. Like you I am BFing and sometimes feed him from a bottle (EBM or formula). He just loves to suck - before I started using a dummy he would be on me for ages before settling and it was a while before I realised he wasn't actually hungry, he was just comfort sucking to settle himself. Better to do that with a dummy than my nipples!! Now he just sucks that for a few minutes when I put him down and is usually still awake when it falls out but much calmer and then he drifts off to sleep. Sometimes he falls asleep with it in his mouth but doesn't wake up when it falls out.

    Would highly recommend!! As long as you're not misusing dummies (ie shoving it in their mouths to shut them up whenever they cry instead of meeting their needs) I think they are really good and I can't think of any reason why it would interfere with BFing once it's established.

    C image
  • Just wanted to echo what charlotte has said.
    My Eddison is now 9wks and has a dummy only for naps and nighttime. Haven't found it caused probs with BF. If I misread his signals and give dummy rather than feed (or vice versa) he gets very cross and definitely lets me know!

    Liz x
  • Hello there! Just wanted to reassure you - I gave my breastfed daughter a dummy from 2 weeks as she was successfully feeding and didn't cause any confusion or problems at all. I also started giving feeds of expressed breast milk in a bottle at 2 weeks and it didn't disrupt her feeding at all.

    Helen x
  • Thank you all for your encouraging replies. I bought some of the Tomee Tippee 'Closer to Nature' dummies yesterday as we have the same brand of bottles and tried to give one to Florence last night, but after all my worrying about it disrupting BF she didn't even take it!!

    She won't take a bottle from me either so will get my OH to offer her the dummy tonight if she's fussing. What a pickle indeed!
  • i started using the closer to nature dummies with my lo but they are nothing like a nipple shape. i've switched to tommee tippee cherry dummies. my mums best friend was a midwife and said cherry shaped dummies are much better for bf babies and are more nipple shaped.

    hth
    Jo x
  • ds had a ctn tt dummy from 5 days old and i bf him til he was 7 months, its fine as long as ur not substituting feeds with ti, which is usually easy to tell as ds wldn't settle with a dummy if he was hungry, and generally i always offered the boob first and if he didn't seem interested or was difficult to settle even after a long feed i wld then offer the dummy, after the first couple of weeks he quickly learnt that the dummy is/was only for naps and bedtime, he never used it thru the day or anything, only for sleeping...x
  • Yes I breast feed miss whammy and a dummy has never hurt that. Bottle teats hurt it more than the dummy did and the teats I was using apparently were supposed to be for breastfeeding babies. Sorry my rant there.
  • I hesitated in giving a dummy bcos Pead told me not to give one as it mishapens the roof of their mouth. But by 4 mths I was desperate as baby was using me day and night as a dummy. But I think i left it too long as she wouldnt take it and laughed at me when i put it in her mouth lol.

    then one day out of no where she wanted it!! I buy the MAM ones

    Lo wont have dummy in the night though - still wants me .....she wont have it in the day awake either...she has to be drowsy lol xxx
    xxxx
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