That sucks

[pne]

Or rather, it likes to suck.

Stella says that Amy really likes to suckle, such as after she's done drinking—and when Stella tries to put her breast away, Amy will complain and will want to lick or suck for a bit.

She's also been crying a bit the past day or two, possibly from stomach complaints, but maybe also from other things—and sucking on something (a finger, for example) will get her to quiet down.

Stella just tried to nurse her but she says Amy is just suckling, not actually drinking.

She said she's considering getting a dummy (pacifier) for her since she seems to like sucking so much, and it calms her down—but I'm not such a fan of them. Among the things I've heard is that it may impair or change the development of their jaw shape and that it may cause them to drink less since they're satisfying part of their need to suck on something that doesn't provide nutrition, so they'll drink less well at the breast. I've also heard that it might cause them to have difficulties nursing at the breast due to the different shapes, and that at least for the first weeks of life, one should avoid using a dummy.

But having her cry the whole time is not fun, either, and giving her the breast when she's not hungry seems a bit... hm... not exactly a waste of time, but something like that. Having her occupied might also help while changing nappies, which she occasionally protests loudly over.

Any advice or experience?

---

After visiting Bettina, she said that she doesn't think dummies are so reprehensible, and that it may be preferable to letting her scream all the time. (She also said that in the course of our parenting, we'll have to make compromises with our "standards" many times when we find out that things aren't as cut-and-dried as that.)

She also pointed out that while Amy might enjoy just sucking on the breast all day long, the nipples won't hold up to that for too long, and then just nursing would be a chore—which would also be an undesirable state of things.

She also said that maybe we should just wait and see how things turn out—for example, when her daughter switched from dummy to thumb, it only lasted for a week and a half, and had they known that, they could have been a lot more calm about it.

Comments

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

From one techie to another, bringing up babies/children is like building websites - making everthing all lovely and standards-compliant is a wonderful thing, but sometimes that only works in theory and compromises have to be made! After days of tearing your hair out trying to get a page to work AND be standards compliant, you just give up and make it work (as ultimately, that's more important) - equally when your baby/child has spent hours screaming, you'll be less worried about giving them a dummy if it just shuts them up for a bit!:D

Seriously, though, I've been through the whole baby thing with quite a few friends and family - everytime the parents have done things different ways, and it doesn't seem to have made a whole lot of difference either way.

Certainly if the baby spends too much time sucking at the breast, the nipples will get extremely sore - possibly even to the the point where it is agony to feed the baby (which can be very upsetting for the mother as well as the baby) - I've seen this happen a couple of times. I wouldn't worry too much about the whole "don't do this as it'll cause this" buiness, as it's more often than not a load of old wives' tales that have little or no substance.

If all dummies caused deformed jaws, for instance, then there'd be an awful lot of people out there with deformed jaws! Some kids will take to dummies and some won't - my nephew wouldn't touch one (despite his mother's best attempts), whereas my brother had one for years.

Standards are good as a guideline, IMO, but not always particularly practical when followed to the letter. Just take things as they come and use your judgement - that's part of the fun of bringing up children!:)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Standards are good as a guideline, IMO, but not always particularly practical when followed to the letter.

That's something I'm not willing to embrace just now - I'm a bit idealistic on that point. But I'll keep it in mind and evaluate how my mindview works out in real life.