What do you think of dummies (pacifiers)?

Dummies are fine as to a certain age only,but not until 5 years old.

I call them stoppers, and I detest them. The only use I have for them is if you are flying or driving in the mountains. Because the sucking will help their little ears. My friends know how I feel about them and when they bring their children to my house for me to watch, to stopper must come out and disapear. I refuse to answer a child who is asking for somrthing with that thing in their mouth. I tell them that they have to take it out and ask again because I cannot understand them. (I know alot of 2 year olds) I have dogs that are great with kids but they want to chew on the stoppers too, so I have a rule that if one hits my floor it is thrown away, to keep my dogs safe. Besides all of that, how can you expect a child to learn to talk if they always have a stopper in their mouths? By 4 a child should have a sippy cup not a stopper

I did give my four eldest dummies but tended to try to restrict the use of them as I am not too keen on them. By the age of about nine months all my children were weaned off the dummies. With my youngest son he hated dummies from the start so after him rejecting it we decided not to bother with a dummy as he did not want it. I have to agree I hate to see children of four or five running round with dummies in their mouth. I think at that age that they should have not have dummies as they are too old for them.

I don't have any problems with children having dummies in there mouths. My four children never had a dummy, but there two of my children's teeth do stick out a bit due to one being a big thumb sucker and the other one always chewed her nightwear at nighttime, so they may need braces when older. Our eldest daughter needed what they call train track braces, she never had a dummy or sucked anything, her teeth didn't stick out but they were just crooked and she also had two many teeth in her mouth. If I had my time again, I still wouldn't give them a dummy but I don't have a problem if I see children with a dummy, it is a bit bad if they are still having one at the age of four or five but at least you can take it away from them, you can't take a thumb etc away!!LOL

I have gotten pretty lucky with this because all my kids (4 of them) were never interested in them. I gave them all them when they first came home from the hospital but then after about a week or 2 they just werent intereseted in it. They play with them. My youngest who is 11 months has about 10 of them but he puts them in his mouth backwards or just looks at them and then goes on to something else. I have a neighbor that has a son who will be 3 in a few weeks and he wont leave his alone. He has to have it with him to sleep and most of the time he is awake. He is still on a bottle too, to go to sleep. Its crazy I think. As cute as some kids look with them I just dont see a kid over like 2 having one or even really needing either.

Up until we started cereal and purees with our daughter we needed to give her the pacifier after every feeding to prevent spit-up. Now, we are only giving it to her when we need her to get and nap but we know that she is fighting it. She sleeps so light for her naps that its the only thing that will really work to help her get a long enough rest. She doesn't need it to go to sleep at night and sleeps through the night for us (has since 5 weeks old) I'm kinda thinking that she will be done with it before she's a year old. Because she hasn't really shown a major attachment to it, we will probably try to phase it completely out of her life around 8 or 9 months old...we can only hope it will work. There are alot of parents who make the mistake of using the pacifier EVERY time they need to calm their child down...in turn the child will see this as the only way to calm themselves...they never learn any other ways. The same when it comes to sleep. Children have to learn to put themselves to sleep...not always have to rely on a pacifier. It disgusts me when I see a child older than 2 with a pacifier in their mouth. This means that the parents neglected their needs and they see this as the only way to be fully content. I disagree with that on so many levels.

I must admit that I don't like seeing babies with dummies, especially when they spit them onto the floor, and people just pick them up and put them straight back into their mouths. I didn't give my daughter a dummy, but she used to suck on her finger all the time, which did make her finger a bit swollen - she grew out of it quite quickly though.

They are ok for a little while but if the kid still has it past the age of 6 or 8 months it can be very difficult to get them to give it up later.