Babies calm down with pacifiers because they satisfy the innate, powerful sucking reflex, which triggers a natural calming response, lowers stress, and provides comfort, similar to being in the womb, helping with self-soothing, pain relief (like during shots or ear pressure changes), and even promoting sleep by regulating breathing and heart rate. The rhythmic sucking motion reduces heart rate, blood pressure, and stress, offering immediate relief for fussiness or discomfort, explains Happiest Baby.
When a pacifier is used as a tool to sooth, to calm, it effects the levels of cortisol being released in the brain. Cortisol is our stress hormone, which regulates the immune system and our metabolism, while also helping the baby respond to a threat - at which point it reduces other bodily functions like digestion.
Babies who prefer pacifiers tend to use them as self-soothing tools for sleeping. You can help promote self-soothing skills early by introducing a pacifier and practicing the safety guidelines outlined above.
Research suggests that harmful dental effects can start by age 2. To prevent harm to the teeth, start weaning the pacifier before age 2. Weaning even earlier, between 6 and 12 months of age, may reduce the risk of ear infections too. Offer praise when your child chooses not to use the pacifier.
Pacifiers help calm fussy babies Pacifiers are great for newborn babies because they help these little babies calm and sooth by activating their ``calming reflex''. This reflex is triggered when a baby sucks on a pacifier, their thumb, a bottle or a breast.
Limit the time you allow your child to use a pacifier. Use it only for sleep time and comfort until about 12 months old and then plan to give it up. Never use punishment or humiliation to force your child to give up using a pacifier.
How to do it:
Offer your toddler a replacement for their soother, such as a stuffed animal or a blanket. This can help them feel comforted without the need for a soother. Offer other ways to help them soothe, especially at bedtime, rubbing their back, deep breathing, snuggles, and cuddles.
Despite these benefits, pacifier use remains a controversial parental practice. While pacifier use is recommended for preventing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS),9,10 it has also been linked with acute otitis media and other infections,11,12,13,14 dental malocclusion,15 and excessive weight gain.
The 5-3-3 rule is a loose guideline for structuring a baby's sleep schedule: 5 hours of wake time before the first nap, 3 hours of wake time before the second nap, and 3 hours before bedtime.
What are the signs of self-soothing?
Yes, newborns can sleep with pacifiers. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies use pacifiers at nap time and night to reduce their risk of SIDS. If you're breastfeeding, wait until that's established – give it about 3 weeks – before giving your baby a pacifier.
A pacifier can help reduce stress. Because of the sucking reflex, a pacifier serves as a soothing mechanism for the child and can offer temporary distraction, such as during shots, blood tests, or other procedures.
Encouraging transitional objects is a helpful strategy to teach your toddler to self-soothe without a pacifier. Transitional objects, such as a favorite stuffed animal, blanket, or soft toy, can provide comfort and security to your little one.
Pacifier use has been linked to negative effects on speech and language development in infants and toddlers. Prolonged use of pacifiers can lead to raised or indented palates, which can result in an oral cavity that is too large for normal articulation (Choi et al., 2019).
By the time Christian W. Meinecke applied for a patent for “a new and original Design for a Baby Comforter” in 1901, people had been giving babies soothing objects to suck on for centuries: knotted rags dipped in water or honey, wooden beads or “gum sticks” made of stone, bone or coral.
By 4 to 6 months of age, however, self-soothing behaviors at sleep onset and following nighttime awakenings begin to appear in some infants and tend to increase in frequency to the first birthday (Goodlin-Jones et al., 2001).
She makes a strong plea for withholding pacifiers from the child, as they are impediments "in disguise", hindering a healthy development, also of language.
The first three months with your baby often seem the hardest. Sleep-deprived parents can feel overwhelmed, but that is normal and you will quickly learn how to read your baby's cues and personality. Don't worry about “spoiling” your baby at this stage.
Why Does SIDS Peak at 2-4 Months? The widely accepted explanation for the SIDS peak has to do with the timeline of brain development. “Up to 4 months old, the part of the brain that controls breathing and wakefulness is under a lot of development,” Juliet explains.
The Japanese have discovered an ingenious way to put your baby to sleep in exactly 13 minutes. If your baby can't fall asleep, the trick is to hold him in your arms for five minutes while walking and then for another eight minutes.
The "3-minute rule" for baby sleep, often part of the Ferber method or graduated extinction, involves waiting 3 minutes before briefly checking on a crying baby at bedtime, then extending the wait time (e.g., to 5, then 10 minutes) with each subsequent check-in, allowing the baby to learn to self-soothe. This method teaches babies to fall asleep independently by offering short, reassuring comfort without picking them up, feeding, or turning on lights, gradually increasing intervals until they fall asleep.
Dummies: helping children let go
Eliminate the pacifier at nighttime.
Only allow it during nap time (and keep it in the crib). The drive to fall asleep is higher at night than during naps so you will find more success eliminating it for night sleep prior to day sleep.