As part of being an Early Childhood we deal with a lot of children and all their emotions. Some know how to self regulate and others don’t.

Self Regulation

A baby learns soothing through sucking on her mother’s breast. Later when babies find their hands, they start putting their hands in their mouth’s to self regulate. I’ve decided not to use dummies as it forces the regulation on an external object. Imagine this scenario : A little girl falls down. She feels hurt and starts to cry. The mother tries to console her, a natural response, but now, all the girl wants, is her dummy.

Speech development

In addition, research has proven that prolonged passifier use can “distort the development of s,z,sh,ch,t,d,n’ sounds eg ‘sun’ might sound like ‘thun’. This is because the dummy encourages the forward-backward movement of a baby’s tongue which results in these sounds being pushed forward.” Extract from a research article called The Impact of Prolonged (meaning beyond 18 months) Pacifier Use

Oral fixation

The above mentioned refers to long term use but from experience I know that for some children it’s really hard to get rid of the habit of dummy sucking. Oral fixation is therefore referred to the habit of fixating on an oral object. Oral fixation is a term first used by Sigmund Freud in relation to getting fixated on the oral stage of development. These children may then as adults get fixated to other objects related to the mouth example, cigarettes and or food. Read more https://theeducationlife.com/oral-fixation/

There are certainly benefits to dummies and pacifiers but I have chosen not to introduce yhem.to my baby. I would love to hear your opinions on this no matter how varied 😉