Main Points:
Suck, and be satisfied.
Isaiah 66:11
If mixing all the “S’s” together is like baking a cake, then sucking is the icing on the cake. This last sweet nudge allows babies to settle down, let go, and fall asleep.
A baby’s survival outside the womb depends on her ability to suck. Like an actor rehearsing for a starring role, your baby began practicing sucking on her fingers long before birth. (Ultrasound photos of fetuses show them sucking on their hands as early as three months before their due date.) It was easy for your fetus to suck her fingers, because the soft walls of your womb kept her hands conveniently right in front of her mouth. Likewise, once she reaches four months of age and has enough muscle control to park her thumb in her mouth anytime she wants, it will again become a breeze for her to suck her fingers.
However, during your baby’s fourth trimester she’ll spend very little time sucking her fingers. It’s not that she doesn’t want to—she’d probably slurp on them twenty-four hours a day if she could. But for a newborn, getting a finger into the mouth and keeping it there is almost a Herculean feat. Even when your baby concentrates hard, drooling in anticipation of her success, her poor coordination usually causes her hands to fly right by their target, like cookies narrowly missing a hungry toddler’s mouth!
Why is sucking such a sweet experience for babies? What does it do that gives them so much pleasure?
Sucking makes babies feel extraordinarily good for two reasons:
1. It satisfies their hunger—of course. Who doesn’t love to eat? Well, new babies love it so much that they pack away a milky meal eight to twelve times a day! For babies, all this eating means hours of pleasure from sucking, sucking, sucking.
Some people say that babies eat like “little pigs,” but even piggies have a hard time holding a candle to a baby. Every day, young infants “snort down” about three ounces of milk for every pound of their body weight. That’s equivalent to an adult drinking five gallons of whole milk a day, seven days a week. No wonder they need to eat so often.
2. It turns on their calming reflex. Babies suck to eat, but sucking is yet one more way prehistoric fetuses used to turn on their protective calming reflex and improve their chances of survival.
Sucking for food is called eating, and sucking for soothing is called non-nutritive sucking. If your baby is hungry she’ll probably only suck a pacifier for a minute before crying, as if to complain, “Hey, I ordered milk—not rubber!” However, if she just wants some comfort, she’ll happily suck on the pacifier for a good long while.
Can a Young Baby Suck Too Much?
Some authors warn parents not to let their babies suck “too much,” cautioning that sucking is habit-forming. (I wonder if, given the option, these experts would reach into your womb and pull your baby’s thumb right out of her mouth!) Fortunately, it’s impossible for young babies to suck too much. Sucking isn’t candy or an addiction; it’s a highly sophisticated, self-calming tool. It’s an integral part of the fourth trimester and one of your baby’s first steps toward self-reliance.
The same deep calm that’s activated in your baby’s brain by sucking can also be switched on in the brains of older kids and adults by other “sucking” experiences, such as lollipop licking, cigarette smoking, and nail biting. (No wonder psychologists compare cigar smoking to thumb sucking!)
Many studies have shown that non-nutritive sucking is healthy for babies. It’s like vitamin S! It lessens stress (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.) and can stimulate the release of natural pain-relieving chemicals in a baby’s brain that decrease suffering from shots, blood tests, or circumcisions. Scientists have also found that premature babies who suck pacifiers grow faster, and full-term babies who are “paci” suckers have a lower risk of SIDS.
Have you ever noticed how nicely your baby falls asleep while sucking? Most babies just soften like melted butter. Of course, mothers throughout time have traditionally satisfied their infants’ need to suck the old-fashioned way, with the breast. Mother’s milk is the center of an infant’s world—which is why some people even refer to breast-feeding moms as Earth Mothers.
But, rather than Earth Mother, I think a breast-feeding mom should be called Galactic Goddess! That’s because the ancient Greeks invented the words galaxy and galactic out of their word gala, meaning milk. Legend said that the stars in the heavens came from milk spraying out of the breasts of the goddess Juno, which is also why we call our galaxy the Milky Way.
For mothers from tribes like the Efé of Zaire and the !Kung San of Botswana, sucking is usually the first solution they try to calm their babies. At the least little squawk, these moms plunk their babies onto the boob thirty, forty, one hundred times a day!
In past centuries, it was common in some cultures to put sugar inside a rag for babies to suck on. Sometimes this “sugar teat” was dunked in brandy if a baby was particularly fussy. My friend Celia, raised in Russia in the 1920s, remembers that her neighbors, unable to afford sugar, instead offered colicky babies a small piece of chewed-up bread wrapped in a thin cloth.
As rubber nipples for bottles became popular in the early 1900s, so did rubber pacifiers for sucking on. The English called these “dummies,” choosing this name not because a baby looked dumb with a pacifier in the mouth, but because these little rubber teats silenced cries so quickly.
For thousands of years, mothers have offered their breasts to their babies as pacifiers. Our babies are designed to suckle frequently; in fact, mothers in some cultures put their babies to the breast one hundred times a day! In our culture today, however, such frequent nursing is impractical even though many of our babies still “desire” it. Some parents try to help their babies suck on their thumbs, but for most infants, that is like picking up ice with chopsticks—it slips away despite the best efforts. That’s why they usually need a little sucking assistance.
Luckily, today’s parents have another effective sucking tool for moms whose babies want to suckle one hundred times a day—pacifiers.
However, as with other aspects of baby calming, there are certain tricks to using pacifiers well. These tips increase your baby’s chances for pacifier “suck”cess:
• Try different nipples—In my experience, no pacifier shape is superior to another. Some babies like orthodontic pacifiers, with their long stems and tips that are flattened on one side. Others prefer nubbier pacifiers with short stems. Ultimately, the perfect pacifier shape for your baby is the one she likes the best.
• Don’t try the hard sell—You can try putting the pacifier in your baby’s mouth when she’s crying, but don’t force it if she refuses.
• You’ll be most successful if you calm her first with the other “S’s” and then offer the pacifier.
• Use reverse psychology to keep the pacifier from falling out—This is the best trick I’ve ever seen for teaching a baby to keep the pacifier in her mouth. When your baby is calm, offer her the pacifier. The moment she starts to suck, tug it lightly as if you were starting to take it out of her mouth (but don’t tug so hard that it actually comes out).
Your baby will respond by resisting your tug and automatically sucking on the pacifier a little harder. Wait a moment and then give a little pull again. Repeat this process ten to twenty times, whenever you give your newborn the pacifier. Her natural tendency to resist you will train her mouth to keep a firm grip on the pacifier. Many two- to three-month-old infants can be trained to keep the pacifier in their mouths even while smiling—and crying.
This reverse psychology technique is based on a simple principle of human nature: We all believe that what is in our mouth belongs to us! That’s why trying to pull your nipple out of your baby’s mouth is like prying a toy from the arms of a two-year-old; the harder you pull, the more she resists, and thus develops the coordination and strength to keep hold of it.
Some parents and grandparents worry that pacifier use may teach a baby bad habits. But truthfully, a pacifier is just a tool to help calm your baby until she can do it herself. There are, however, six potential pacifier problems you’ll want to steer clear of:
1. Nipple confusion—Before nursing is well-established, some breast-feeding babies get confused when they’re given rubber nipples to suck on. A baby sucking on a rubber nipple often uses a lazy, biting motion, which requires much less effort and coordination than sucking on the breast. Unfortunately, this also sometimes teaches a baby an improper way to use her mouth muscles.
Therefore, bottles and pacifiers should be avoided during the first two to three weeks of life to avoid nipple confusion (or longer, if there are any breast-feeding problems).
Once the nursing is going well, you have a choice. You may decide never to offer a bottle and exclusively breast-feed or you may choose to offer your baby occasional bottles. If you choose the latter, because of work or to have the option of giving a bottle if you are ever sick or unavailable, I strongly recommend that you introduce the bottle by three to four weeks of age (parents who wait longer than that are often rudely surprised by their baby’s emphatic rejection of the synthetic nipple). Additionally, once your baby is taking a bottle well (with breastmilk, water, or non-caffeinated peppermint or chamomile tea), do not skip more than one to two days without giving a bottle … so your baby doesn’t forget how to take it.
2. Chemical contamination—Buy clear silicone pacifiers instead of yellow rubber ones. The yellow rubber gets sticky and deteriorates after a while and may release tiny amounts of unwanted chemical residue.
3. Keep sweets away—Don’t dip a pacifier into syrup to make your baby suck on it more eagerly. Sweeteners like honey and maple or corn syrup run a risk of giving your baby botulism (a disease causing temporary paralysis, and even death).
4. Keep it clean—When you buy a pacifier, wash it well with soap and hot water. Rinse it when it falls on the floor—and several times a day even if it doesn’t. Don’t suck your baby’s pacifier to clean it in your mouth, since your saliva may spread colds, herpes, or other illness.
5. No strings attached—Never hang a pacifier around your baby’s neck. Strings or ribbons may get caught around her fingers, cutting off the circulation, or wrap around the throat and choke her.
6. Enough is enough—Once a baby reaches four to five months of age, I usually get rid of pacifiers. By that time, your infant can suck on her own fingers and do many other things to calm herself. Stopping the pacifier after six months is more difficult, because by then your baby has already started to develop a close emotional relationship with her “paci,” much like a teddy bear or security blanket.
The Whys About the “S’s”:
Questions Parents Ask About Sucking
1. How can I tell if my baby needs milk or just wants to suck?
These signs indicate your baby is crying for food:
2. Does sucking on a pacifier shorten breast-feeding?
Since how a baby sucks on a pacifier differs from how she sucks on a breast, wait two to three weeks, until breast-feeding is going well, before introducing the pacifier. At that point, pacifiers can occasionally make breast-feeding more successful by lessening a baby’s crying and helping her mom get a break from nonstop sucking.
3. Can pacifiers cause ear infections?
A few studies have reported that babies using pacifiers get more ear infections. This probably happens because sucking hard on a pacifier disturbs the pressure in the ears (the same way pressure changes on airplane flights can give kids ear infections). Fortunately, young infants can’t suck a pacifier hard enough to cause much pressure to build up. So you don’t have to worry about this for the first four months.
4. Can pacifiers protect babies from SIDS?
Scientific studies consistently report a lower incidence of SIDS among infants who use pacifiers. It’s not entirely clear how bedtime pacifier use protects babies. Nevertheless, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends bedtime pacifier use (bottle-fed babies from birth; breast-fed babies over one month of age).
5. Can my baby become addicted to the pacifier if she always sleeps with one?
No! This is one old wives’ tale you can put to bed. When Hannah was five months old, it took her mother a mere three days to wean her pacifier use down from all night and several hours a day to just two minutes a day.
However, as mentioned, a baby over five to six months may begin to develop an emotional attachment to her binkie. Although you can still wean her from the pacifier after that age, it’s often more traumatic.
6. If sucking is so important, should I wrap my baby with her hands out so she can get to them?
Calm babies may do fine with their hands unwrapped, but fussy babies have a hard time sucking their fingers without accidentally whacking themselves in the face. For these kids, having their hands free is a frustrating tease. It’s much easier on agitated babies to swaddle them and give them pacifiers, because they can control their bodies and suck better when their arms are not flailing and disturbing them.
7. Will frequent feeding spoil my baby or make her tummy more colicky?
Many parents, like Valerie and David, are warned that “overfeeding” can give their baby tummy pain:
“Our baby, Christina, was screaming and would calm only on my breast. My husband said I was making her colicky by feeding her every time she cried. My friends warned me I would spoil her by feeding her so often. What should I do?”
When Valerie asked me this, I told her, first, thank goodness she had a method that worked to calm her baby. Second, it’s impossible to spoil a fetus—and all babies are “fetuses” for the first three months. Third, she needed to call her doctor to make sure her baby was getting enough milk.
I never worry about a young baby’s frequent suckling leading to spoiling or upset tummies. After all, we know from our studies of primitive cultures that babies were “originally designed” to nurse, on and off, all day and night. However, it sounded to me like Valerie was overlooking something very important. Although suckling Christina was a beautiful and satisfying way to soothe her fussiness, Valerie was not taking advantage of the other natural calming tools she possessed. So I recommended that she and David learn and practice the other 4 “S’s.” That would enable David to play a more active role and for Valerie to have a respite from breastfeeding.
Dads are especially eager to master other calming tricks, because they often feel left out when the only method that calms their baby is a milky breast. Once fathers learn how to quickly soothe their babies, they feel much more confident caring for them.
8. If I let my baby suckle on my breasts all night, I sleep well and it feels very cozy. Is there anything harmful in doing this?
Spending the night with your baby at your side is how most people have slept throughout the ages. I think one of the most blessed feelings a woman can have is the sweet sleep that she shares with her nursing child. When you are together like that, it’s natural that she may want to nibble a little on and off. However, it’s your choice. You can go along with your baby’s wishes or keep your shirt on and try to pacify her another way. There’s no right or wrong about this—the decision is yours. (See Chapter 15 for a discussion of the pros and cons about co-sleeping.)
However, if you’re sleeping with your baby, please be aware of the following:
9. There are a lot of thumb suckers in my family. Will giving my baby a pacifier prevent her from sucking her thumb later … or encourage it?
Some babies are just incredibly driven to suck. Their strong desire is not a sign of being overly immature, dependent, or insecure (or of your being too lax as a parent). In my experience, the vast majority of cases of prolonged thumb and pacifier sucking is simply an inherited trait, no different from eye color or dimples. Or, to put it another way, it’s one thing you really can blame on your parents!
There is little doubt that pacifiers prevent thumb sucking; it’s just too hard to get both into the mouth at the same time. But in my experience it doesn’t affect the length of time a baby demands to suck on something (finger or paci).
Some babies are interested in sucking only when they want to eat. For other babies sucking is like a massage, tranquilizer, and hot bath all rolled into one!
Here are stories of some babies who were “suckers for sucking”:
Annie and Michael were especially worried when their little boy screamed; Rylan’s heart problem made extreme exertion dangerous. So Ann carried him around the apartment for hours, until her back was in such pain that she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She resisted giving Rylan a pacifier because she “didn’t want to start teaching him bad habits that he would have trouble stopping later on.” Finally, however, driven to desperation, Ann reluctantly gave it a try and “Bingo! Giving Rylan the pacifier was a godsend! We still had to entertain him, but the binkie let me walk away and take a break, especially when he was in his vibrating seat.”
Stanley began to struggle with his feedings when he was seven weeks old. He had always begun his meals with gusto, but now after ten minutes he was pulling away and licking at the nipple as if he had forgotten how to eat. Seconds later he would arch back and wail as if he wanted to jump out of his mother’s arms. But that wasn’t what he wanted either, because as soon as Stanley was put down, he cried even harder.
Stanley’s parents, Maria and Bill, tried rocking and wrapping him, but when he was really agitated he could free his hands in seconds. Maria, confused and frustrated, wondered if her milk had turned bad or dried up.
Fortunately, the problem was much less complicated than that. Maria had plenty of milk—in fact, too much. When Stanley tried extra suckling for fun at the end of his feeding, Maria’s breasts continued releasing a stream of milk into his throat. Stanley had to pull away to avoid choking, but he was in a pickle because he still wanted to suck.
Once Maria and Bill began offering the pacifier at the end of his feedings, he became an angel again.
Steven and Kelly said their one-month-old bruiser, Ian, loved sucking on his paci. But if it fell out of his mouth he started to scream. Kelly lamented, “It works great, but we feel like we’re becoming his pacifier slaves. My mom joked that we should just tape it in his mouth. I knew that even kidding about that was terrible, but we were going out of our minds.”
When Steven and Kelly called, I taught them about “reverse psychology.” One week later Kelly called back, amazed at how quickly the paci problem was solved. Within a week lan’s mouth muscles were so well trained he could hold the pacifier for one to two hours without dropping it.
Kelly said, “It’s weird. I thought the best way to keep lan’s pacifier in his mouth was to keep pushing it back in. But what worked was to do exactly the opposite!”
Some babies will suck on anything you put in their mouths, but some are like miniature gourmets. Take Liam, who as a two-month-old refused to suck on anything—not pacifiers, not his fingers, not even a bottle, with one exception: He loved to suck on his mother’s second finger!
