Dummy - when is the correct time?

We had planned on going without, and one of the nurses gave him one while we were at the hospital (he didn't come home for about 2 weeks due to very very bad jaundice) and it settled him right away. He self weaned off them around 2 months and doesn't take them now even if offered. Before he had it he had to be syringe fed because his tongue tie was bad enough he couldn't latch even on a bottle, and it helped him be able to bottle feed till the dr was able to snip the tongue tie after we got out of hospital (had to wait due to technicalities on insurance stuff)

The general recommendation is to wait about 4 weeks before introducing it especially if you're breastfeeding.

Babies cluster feed a lottttt in the early days. You need to be very very sure baby isn’t hungry and cluster feeding otherwise you’ll experience weight gain issues and your milk supply may drop.

Breastfeeding is very labour intensive in the first few weeks and months but it gets so much better I promise. Baby becomes more efficient, the cluster feeding isn’t as frequent and baby goes a little longer between feeds. Hang in there!

Dummies were a lifesaver for us in the early colicky days. All babies are different. We really struggled with breastfeeding and introduced a bottle from day 1 as I was in so much pain and he wasn’t latching properly so wasn’t getting enough. So many people say not to do it but 4 months later we’re EBF and he won’t even take a bottle or dummy.

I've given dummies from day 1 with my older 2 children and will do the same with my 3rd when he arrives. I breastfed and plan to do so again and never had any problems

My daughter got hers at 3 days old in the neonatal ward, she smashed moving from bottle to boob to dummy with no issues x

The midwife on the delivery ward gave my baby a dummy the day he was born and he was fine x

Second baby & he’s BF but we introduced bottle & dummy from 1 week old this time. Left it to 4 weeks with my daughter & she rejected the bottle & dummy! They talk about nipple confusion, but I’ve never heard of this being an issue!!!

I introduced a dummy to my EBF daughter at about 5 days when she started using my boobs as a dummy.

I read online that they shouldn’t get nipple confusion if they are feeding well and if you don’t use it instead of feeding, only as comfort. So I followed this and only used it to help her sleep rather than instead of milk. She took to the dummy very well and we never had any issues.

We gave our boy a dummy at 3 days old to settle him

Not true- dummies can be introduced from birth. I’ve used them with both of my two and a neonatal consultant encouraged this when my son was in special care. He explained that babies have an inate sucking reflex from in the womb and sometimes they just need to suck for comfort, so it also prevents over feeding for babies who just want to suck. Use it whenever you want to! Personally I think dummies are fine and used properly, don’t hinder speech or any other development as long as they are not too dependent on them as an older baby/toddler. This is my experience only but sometimes a dummy is the only thing that will soothe a fussy baby!

I wouldn't give one early if breastfeeding and it's been difficult. It's because the sucking on a dummy and a bottle is completely different to that of a breast. They have to work with a breast. I won't be doing it because I don't want the confusion. Probably different if there a 0 issues with breastfeeding but that's not the case with everyone.

I did at 4 weeks and really regretted. Would do at 6 weeks next time as the nipple confusion was exhausting. He stopped getting confused at 6 weeks old but for 2 weeks he kept doing a shallow dummy latch and I had to reteach him a deep latch every single feed and he had a good deep latch from 0-4 weeks. I was so mad at my partners family for pressuring the dummy