Knowing that there are some situations where some parents will not feel comfortable "plugging baby in", after discussing the drawbacks of pacifier use, especially while baby is still learning, I do give them an alternative. Situations may include: visitors leaving within the next few minutes and mom would be much more comfortable nursing after they leave; parents are up in front of theoir church having baby baptised. I'm sure there are many others. I'm not talking about substituting a pacifier for a feed or putting baby off for a long time-just a couple minutes. What is the best pacifier short of mom's breast? In my opinion it's a knuckle. Letting baby suck on your knuckle has a couple advantages-it's skin, admittedly not the same consistency as a breast, but at least it's skin. Secondly, a knuckle isn't stimulating the back of baby's mouth immediately like a pacifier or even a finger. (Remember, it takes a few sucks to bring mom's nipple/areola that far back in the mouth-one of the prime aspects of pacifiers leading to "confusion".) I found it to be a great way to settle my "always wanting something in the mouth" baby. Winnie *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html