I usually am a fairly strong defender of pacifiers (despite recently being
in an altercation with a psychiatrist who told me I was keeping my 20 month
old infantile by using my breast as a pacifier =P) but I tend to forget I
did not use one in the way they are most commonly used.

I had a car seat HATER for a second baby.  I didn't feel strapping a
newborn into a seat far from me to drive 5,15, or 30 minutes was any more
natural than using a pacifier.  So I got her a pacifier which was SUPPOSED
to be just for the car.  She used it in the car.  It helped.

I was also dealing with some OALD/foremilk-hindmilk issues.  Nothing
serious, but there.  She was enraged when she would nurse for comfort and
omigosh MILK of all things would come out.  She'd suck anyway, then get all
sick from injesting too much.

I was pretty rabidly against thumb sucking.  Buck teeth and braces and my
dh still gently removing my thumb each night brought that opinion.

I offered my finger, but my ferocious sucker was digging it into her throat
(her suck was phenomenal).  So I let her have it in the house.  But we'd
nurse first, then, when she was annoyed milk was coming out as she'd drift
off, I'd slip the pacifier in, she'd nod off, and I'd remove it.  That was
the only time we used it.  She never layed around with it in her mouth, or
sat and played with it in, or anything like that.  Just to drift off.

Around 8 months, she started refusing it (or more specifically not
requesting it) as often during feedings.  I noticed we were using it less
and less in general, and around 9 months she refused it outright.

I recognize though, a far better option would have been to fix the OALD.  I
just couldn't figure out how in combination with her ferocious suck.
-Wendey
Mother of Olivier (2Feb97) and Kay (11March99)
Studying CCE with ICEA
Studying LC Living in the 'burbs of Montreal
"A child is not a vase to be filled but a fire to be lit" -Francois Rabelais

             ***********************************************
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