In the last week, Maddi has started to discover her arms and hands. She's started to swipe at Mr. Owly hanging from her car seat and Pooh from her chair. She's also started to suck on her fingers. This brought me to my most recent dilemma - do I let her keep sucking on her fingers or introduce the pacifier.
It's a hard choice to make, each comes with their own pros and cons.
If we let her keep sucking her fingers, at the worst extreme she could keep sucking her fingers into her adulthood (yes, someone has told me they know someone who still does whenever they're stressed!), she could suck her fingers so much that they become raw and calloused. On the upside, when she feels the need to suck, her fingers are always available. Also, she would only suck when she feels the need to suck.
If we introduce a pacifier, we have more control over when she stops sucking. On the downside, introducing a pacifier might make her suck more than she would without it... just because it's in her mouth. And if she relies on it to soothe, I would have to get up in the middle of the night to put the pacifier back in her mouth whenever she loses it.
At this point, we don't know how much she'll feel the need to suck. She is swaddled every night when she goes to bed, so no sucking overnight. Throughout the day, she doesn't suck that much either.
I am a planner, I like being able to anticipate scenarios that may arise in the near future. I like having ample time to thoroughly consider my options instead of making a quick decision when the time comes. I do know this is not always possible.
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