I never knew that giving your child a dummy was an issue until i was getting ready to leave the hospital after having River. Before leaving the hospital the midwife comes around and goes through a few things with you like breastfeeding, contraception (not like that was happening any time soon) and how your feeling ect and then she told me that the hospital discourages the use of dummies. She said that dummies can cause nipple confusion. I don't know why but i smiled and agreed with her without really knowing what nipple confusion was, she must have assumed i knew because she didn't explain.
A week or so later River had been feeding for about 2 hours and just wouldn't settle, Jamie suggested giving him the dummy and i said no. He asked why and i said the hospital discourages the use of them because it can cause nipple confusion. He asked what that was and i looked at him with a blank face and said umm i don't know. So i whipped my old mate google and typed in nipple confusion.
Nipple Confusion
Nipple confusion doesn't mean your baby is confused about what your breast or nipple is for. Nipple confusion is used to describe when a baby is reluctant to breastfeed, and seems to find it easier to bottle-feed expressed milk, this can be caused by the introduction of a dummy to early on.
The sucking actions of breastfeeding, when compared to a dummy (or bottle feeding) are very different.
Bottle teats are fairly rigid, with a constant flow of milk, so your baby won't have to work hard to get at the milk he wants. To feed from your breast, your baby must first open his mouth wide to latch on. Then he'll need to use about 40 facial muscles, which he'll work constantly to get his tummy full of milk.
Now i'd never heard of nipple confusion before, but after researching i decided i'd give the dummy a go anyway. Its amazing how a screaming baby and your lack of sleep can influence your choices. The next night the same thing happened with River, he was feeding for about 2 hrs and just wouldn't settle. In the end he wasn't even really sucking, he was just flutter sucking as i like to call it. I put him back in his little sleep safe cot which was in our bed and gave him the dummy, within 10 min he was out cold.
We only use the dummy with River mostly if we're out somewhere and his starting to get fussy. I've never experienced nipple confusion with River, personally i think if you shove something in Rivers mouth and there is food coming out the other end he'll take it.
I thought nipple confusion was quite interesting and it can be a problem for some mums. I was surprised with all the reading i did over my pregnancy i didn't read anything about this.
Have you ever experienced nipple confusion with your little one?
Are you choosing not to give your bub a dummy for fear of nipple confusion?
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