When I was pregnant with my first child, I read article after article about how babies would get hooked on pacifiers. I read about moms who were desperate to figure out how to get their older babies to stop using their beloved pacifiers, how frequent pacifier use might cause delays in speech as well as eventual dental problems. I also read commentaries that stated these babies would never learn how to deal with their emotions if a pacifier was shoved in their mouths every time they got upset.

It seemed like the best solution to me was to simply not give my baby a pacifier. I announced to every nurse who came into the room after my baby was born that my daughter was under no circumstances to have access to a pacifier. Any pacifier we got as gifts was unopened and given to charity. It seemed like I was avoiding a huge hassle and felt good about what I was doing.

After a few weeks it became obvious that if my daughter wasn’t going to have access to a pacifier, I would become her pacifier. No matter why the baby was crying, which happens a lot with newborns- she wound up nursing. Whenever she was tired but wouldn’t fall asleep -which also happens a lot with newborns- she wound up nursing. I’d had enough, so I researched the best pacifiers online and then sent my husband out to buy a wide assortment. I was anxious to start her on pacifiers so I could get a little rest.

Some Babies Just Don’t Want a Pacifier

Guess what? She didn’t want anything to do with the pacifiers. I tried all the tactics the experts talked about to entice babies to suck on pacifiers, but it was all to no avail. She wasn’t having anything to do with pacifiers no matter what brand I presented and no matter what tactic I tried to use.

I wondered if the reason my daughter didn’t take to pacifiers was because I didn’t allow her to experience them in the first few weeks life, so when my son was born I wasn’t going to make the same mistake. I had pacifiers at the ready when he was born. I looked forward to the opportunity to give him an option to self-soothe that didn’t involve him spending long hours nursing when he wasn’t even hungry.

You may have guessed where this is going; he didn’t like pacifiers either. I was amazed because this time around I had set out with all the intentions in the world of getting him started on pacifiers early on and would just deal with any consequences later. The lesson learned is this: Some babies just don’t like pacifiers.

If you are like me, you have probably heard stories from seasoned parents who had to resort to the “Pacifier Fairy” or some other tactic to get their babies (or toddlers) to shed the pacifier habit, but you should know that your problem may instead be like mine. I never even got far enough with pacifiers to have to worry about weaning my babies from them.

I guess it just goes to show that you never really know what to expect when it comes to your baby.

Before my son was born, I watched Dr. Harvey Karp’s dvd called The Happiest Baby on the Block. I had read the Happiest Toddler on the Block and I thought that Dr. Karp had a lot of interesting ideas and philosophies. I had heard of the 5 S’s (techniques for having a happy baby) and wanted to learn more about them in hopes to gain some good tricks to put under my belt for my new baby.

We have tried all five S’s in one form or another. Here is how they have worked for us:

• Swaddling – It is said that tight swaddling provides an environment similar to the tight space in the mother’s womb. Our son enjoyed being swaddled for the first couple of weeks. I believe that it did help him settle and sleep more, however, once he was a few weeks old, he would struggle every single time he was swaddled to get his arms out. We no longer swaddle him at 7 weeks.
• Side/stomach position – While holding your baby in your lap, place them either on their left side to assist in digestion, or on their stomach to provide reassuring support. My son continues to enjoy being held with him lying sideways with his back against my stomach. I put some pressure on his stomach with my arm. This is a position that tends to soothe him when he is fussy.
• Shushing Sounds – Basically what is meant by “shushing sounds” is white noise. Babies are soothed by sounds similar to those that they heard while in the womb. From the moment my son was born, if we do a loud, long “sushhhhhhhhh” (not “sh sh sh sh” the way we instinctively sush a baby) sound in his ear, it calms him down almost immediately. This has been one of the most helpful tricks that we learned. We also have a white noise machine in his bedroom. I’m not convinced yet if this works to keep him asleep, but it will help later on when his ears are more sensitive to noise and becomes more easily disturbed during his sleep.
• Swinging – This is another step that is said to mimic what the newborn was used to inside the mother’s uterus. My son enjoys his automatic swing. He also enjoys us rocking him to help him settle. One trick that I learned was to swaddle a newborn prior to placing them in the swing. You can still strap them in, and they feel more secure.
• Sucking – Sucking triggers the calming reflex. Babies are born with the need to suck. Some more than others. Both of my children have been “suckers”. Even though it is often considered a “no no”, we gave my son a pacifier when he was in the hospital to help him stay calm in his incubator during his photo therapy treatments. If it hadn’t been for his pacifier, he would have had to stay under the lights much longer as he cried every time we put him in the incubator.

I am very glad that I watched Dr. Karp’s video before my son was born. Although most of the five S’s are common sense or instinctive, he definitely had some unique spins to them that have certainly helped us have a happier baby!

My two month old daughter Clover received the “Fisher Price Soothing Seas Aquarium” gift set for Christmas and if you don’t already have one of these, you should definitely go get one! My daughter LOVES this toy and it has been an amazing help in getting her to sleep and keeping her entertained. The Aquarium features a variety of different settings so that your baby is constantly stimulated. You can set the aquarium to only play music, only make bubbles, only display the lights, or set it to a melody and variation of each. It also stays on for a period of eighteen minutes without pushing the button or re-activating and this seems to be a good amount of time to allow you to ready yourself for bed without having to disturb your cooing little one.

There are five different “mode” setting on the model, including a soft “Go to Sleep” melody, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” A classic piano piece, soothing ocean sounds and a general soft bubbling noise. The Aquarium is easily portable and either sets or hooks onto your crib, bassinet, or play area. The Aquarium features a large gold “Mommy” fish followed closely by a “baby” fish and a cute little crab who peeps out at your baby from behind a rock. The seaweed sways back and forth to the music and bubbles rise up from the mouths of the fish and from the bottom of the tank. Soothing blue lights simulate actual fish tanks and the soft change of light is both entertaining and calming.

The gift set also comes with a seahorse rattle that my daughter also really likes that is both cute and visually stimulating. The Aquarium also comes with a remote so that you can turn it on or off without disturbing your baby if he or she is a light sleeper, and I found that hanging it on a doorknob keeps it from getting lost. I could not believe how vocal my little girl was about her new toy, she literally lays in her crib and coos and giggles herself to sleep. It also features an on/off button on the front of the tank for your infant to press to learn cause and effect and help develop their motor skills. My daughter is just now ten weeks old and she can turn the Aquarium on and off herself most of the time without any help! I was amazed!

This is a GREAT product and I highly recommend it. The only setbacks to it is that will set you back in batteries, as it does not feature a Ac/DC plug for outlets. The other problem we have run into with it is that it responds to other remotes in the house such as a television or VCR remote at random and we can’t find a way around this type of interference. Other than that, the Soothing Seas Aquarium is both stimulating, soothing, entertaining, and has brought a lot of joy and quiet peaceful evenings to our otherwise hectic life!!