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The Pacifier Wars

Over the years, there has been a tug of war between proponents of the pacifier versus those who are against the pacifier have swung the pendulum back and forth. When my daughter was born, pacifiers were recommended against (especially if you were breastfeeding) and now once again the pendulum is swinging back to be in favor of the pacifier including as an aid to help reduce the changes of SIDS. Pro Pacifier On the pro pacifier side of the fence, there are the medical studies that suggest the babies sucking reflex helps to prevent SIDS. The pacifier is a great … Continue reading →

Getting Rid of the Pacifier

Every parent knows that at some point they will have to wean their child away from the pacifier. After all it wouldn’t do for your five year old to be sucking on a binkie at kindergarten. But the process of weaning can be difficult, although as one parent pointed out, it is easier than weaning a child from sucking their thumb. You can throw a pacifier away but you can’t cut off your child’s thumb. The entire premise of using a pacifier raises some debate among parents and was recently addressed in the baby blog. I personally never used pacifiers. … Continue reading →

Is SIDS Really Caused by Co-Sleeping?

I have written numerous articles on co-sleeping, on my belief that it reduces the risks of SIDS, that it helps breastfeeding mothers and that indeed, “sharing sleep” with our twins was the only way that I survived the twins’ first year. When we started co-sleeping with our daughter in 1999, it was still considered a weird practice. It wasn’t talked about much and there hadn’t been a lot of studies on it at that point. This week however, a nine month study by Scripps Howard News Service has suggested that most babies who died of SIDS, really died of accidental … Continue reading →

Your Baby’s Body Clock

A few years ago, I wrote an article about adjusting your baby’s body clock. This is an important trick to learn if you travel to different time zones or if you, like millions of others, live in a place where your clock is going to be turning back an hour or forward an hour twice a year. This past weekend, we rolled our clocks back by an hour, but it’s hardly that simple on our bodies. Transitioning Time The time change is actually hard on most people, but it is particularly difficult for our children and infants. It can take … Continue reading →