Casey,

Babies cannot thumb suck before about 12 weeks - that's when they get 
the fine motor control required.  Whilst they have been thumb sucking in 
the womb, in order to build up their suckling skills, they cannot get 
their own thumbs into their mouths after birth.  In utero, the thumb is 
squished into place in front of the mouth by the position in the womb.

Therefore, when looking at the dummy/nipple confusion issues, you can't 
easily switch over discussion between dummies and thumb sucking.  Thumb 
sucking doesn't start until way after breastfeeding was either 
succesfully established, or failed.  So thumb sucking isn't an issue on 
nipple confusion in that way, as is suggested in your post.

Dr Harvey Karp, in "Baby Bliss" (The Happiest Baby on the Block, in the 
USA) describes fully the process by which thumb sucking in the womb, can 
be replaced by dummy use in the first three months, and how most babies 
will stop using the dummy, and transfer to their thumbs, at about that 
time.  (He states that giving a baby a dummy is about giving them 
something they can control - they are free to spit it out.)  He does go 
into the arguments about not using dummies as they can interfere with 
breastfeeding, but advocates for the dummy, as he feels in the modern 
world it's not practible for most mothers to offer unrestricted breast, 
and therefore the dummy is an okay substitute until baby can get their 
thumb into their mouths.  You may wish to check on this for your 
research - with the caveat from me that I'm not endorsing this 
viewpoint, just suggesting this resource for your research.  
http://www.thehappiestbaby.com/

Morgan Gallagher

Casey Goodnight wrote:
> Hello, my name is Casey Reynolds and I am a student at Ivy Tech 
> Community College in Indiana.  I have been doing some research on 
> nipple confusion with the pacifier or thumb, not the bottle.  

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