A pacifier comforts and gives your child a piece of mind. It strengthens your child’s mouth and jaw muscles, while training the coordination of the jaw, palate, tongue, and lips. It is also beneficial for your child’s breathing, eating and speech development. 

There are many reasons to give your child a pacifier, but when is the appropriate time to introduce your child to a pacifier?

 Support breastfeeding with a round pacifier 

The general recommendation is to introduce newborns to pacifiers when breastfeeding is fully in place. However, more and more professionals are moving away from this opinion and now recommend introducing children to a pacifier from the start – as long is it is the right pacifier. The right one is a pacifier with a round nipple in natural rubber (latex). 

The round pacifier is the type of pacifier that most closely resembles a mother’s breast in both shape and material. The explanation for this is that when your child is about to breastfeed, the tongue rolls up around the nipple and creates a vacuum, which causes the milk to flow. When your child sucks on a round pacifier, it rolls its tongue around it the same way.

Avoid nipple confusion with a round pacifier 

Nipple confusion typically occurs if newborns become accustomed to using a flat (anatomical or symmetrical) pacifier, before gaining 100% control of its sucking technique during breastfeeding. Flat pacifiers do not require your child to roll the tongue around the pacifier. On the contrary, it is more likely for your child to put pressure on the pacifier with a flat tongue and the lips squeezed. If your child transfers this technique to breastfeeding, the milk will flow poorly, your child will have more difficulty getting enough food, and breastfeeding will be painful for you as a mother. 

If you wait to introduce your child to pacifiers until after breastfeeding is completely in place, you will of course avoid nipple confusion. However, if you want your child to benefit from a pacifier’s many positive qualities, you can safely introduce your child to a pacifier with a round natural rubber nipple from an early stage.