Pacifiers
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A baby's pacifier is a very simple unit. It has one job and one job only and that is to give your infant something to suck on between times of nursing and to satisfy that sucking instinct all infants have. But because the purpose of the pacifier is to put it in your child's mouth, safety is the biggest concern. That concern must outweigh your desire to have a fashionable looking pacifier or to buy the kind that your friends user to fit in. Get a pacifier that is safe and that will work for your child. Don't expect the baby to adapt to the pacifier. Adapt the pacifier to the baby.
The balance between fashion and safety is one that you must deal with in decorating the baby's room, in selecting her clothing and even in finding the right pacifier. But since a pacifier is very much a "utility" item, what it looks like and whether it makes a fashion statement should be a very low priority. You should steer very clear of any pacifier that is accessorized with anything that adheres to the edges of the pacifier.
Even if the accessories are on the handle, you never know when the child will get that pacifier out of her mouth and put it back in incorrectly with the edges, the shield of the handle in her mouth instead of the nipple. You will correct that mistake but you don't want the child to choke on some accessory that came off in your infants mouth before you knew it.
Don’t just assume that because the pacifier is being sold at retail, it must be safe for your child. The goal of any company is to make money. So get to know the different pacifier manufacturers and about their production standards as well. Recently we have had a wave of unsafe baby products come over from China. So research where he pacifiers you buy are made. It could be that even if you buy from a very well known maker of baby products, if that company has "exported" their production facility to China, you might be buying a potentially unsafe product from a trusted vendor. It is up to you to make sure the pacifiers you let your baby put in her mouth are perfectly safe.
Inspect the pacifiers you give to your child even before the purchase to make sure there is no possibility of that unit creating a choking hazard. The pacifier should be a single piece unit so it cannot come apart which would allow the baby to put either section in her mouth. Avoid pacifiers that come with a fluid already in the nipple and sealed off. You don’t know what that fluid is and if that nipple ruptures and that fluid goes down your baby's throat, that could be a disaster.
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Mommies are notorious for being paranoid about baby's safety. But that is a good thing because it is up to you to make sure everything she comes in contact with is as safety conscious as you are. Then if you have done all you can to validate that the pacifier you let baby put in her mouth is safe, that is one area of concern you can lay to rest. And you can get that sense of gratification and relief that by being a concerned mom, you did your job of being a good mom for that little life that has come to live at your house.
