It's hard to ignore the growing evidence that prolonged use of a soother can cause problems in some children, writes EDEL MORGAN.
TODDLER SOOTHER addicts will say anything to get you to feed their habit. "My dodie for just a likkle second?" is my three-year-old's usual butter-wouldn't-melt opening plea, which when refused turns into a more urgent, "Please Mammy? Daddy? I need it."
By the end of our pep talk telling him he's too big for a soother, he'll most likely have thrown himself onto the floor in full tantrum mode, wailing "I'm not a too big, I'm not too big."
Advocates of the soother will say this battle of wills is unnecessary and that all children will eventually kick the habit when they're ready.
"Have you ever seen a 16 year old with a soother," asks a mother calling herself "third time mammy" on a Eumom.com/ie discussion board - a common argument put forward by pro-soother parents.
Impatient with other mothers on the board who were fretting about whether cold turkey or a gradual phasing out of the soother is best, she dismisses it as all "a fuss about nothing". adding "life is hard enough and if that's all they need for a bit of comfort, so what".
A trawl through a number of boards on parenting websites uncovered numerous messages from people saying their children sucked till school age and have good teeth, are perfectly well adjusted and have no speech problems.
Some parents, including me, are finding it harder to ignore growing evidence that prolonged use can cause problems in some children. Common ploys to persuade a toddler to part with their dodie peacefully include the Santa method - ie, offloading it on Santa at Christmas, or an incentive scheme that rewards them with treats or stars on a chart when they go without it for a significant period. The Santa method backfired badly for us when my three-year-old found it in a cupboard. We had to spin an elaborate yarn about how Santa accidentally dropped it down the chimney but was coming back to collect it forthwith.
For those beating themselves up over giving their child a soother in the first place, most of the experts interviewed for this article said soothers can be useful for satisfying the non-nutritive sucking needs of small babies.
A report published in the British Medical Journalin December 2005 suggested that soother use can actually protect against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Sids). Dr Anne O'Neill, a dentist who has been involved in research into the area of soothers, says ideally they should be phased out by the age of 12 months when the teeth are starting to grow.
"The way your child uses the soother could be a factor in the long-term consequences," says O'Neill. "The extent of the damage may depend on the length of time in the mouth, and how strongly they suck. It is hard to quantify the amount of damage until you see the final positioning of the teeth."
Another dentist, Dr Anne O'Connell from Dublin Dental Hospital, agrees that the frequency and severity of the sucking reflex is the biggest issue and can lead to an open bite where the teeth don't come together at the front. "Ideally we'd prefer if children didn't have soothers at all. We know that 30 per cent of children never use their thumb or a pacifier but if we're being realistic most do exhibit non-nutritive sucking behaviour."
She says parents who have soothers stashed in their pockets, in the car and in strategic locations around the house, using them as a behavioural tool, could be storing up problems for the future.
"Parents need to train their child to take comfort in something else like a blanket or a soft toy. If a child still has a soother at the age of three, you should be wondering why they need it."
Consultant clinical psychologist Penny Rogers believes it's best to get rid of it before six months. "The memory of a six month old is so small that within three days it's a meaningless piece of plastic. The older they get the bigger the dependence and resistance to giving it up."
She says it can be difficult for parents who know in theory they should wean their child off the soother early, "but then real life kicks in, you have a rough weekend and you keep putting it off, or you are in the queue in the supermarket trying to pay for stuff and the child starts to give out and it's easier to just stick the soother in their mouth. The more children people have, the more that is happening and the harder it can be to follow through with it."
She says she bumped into some speech and language therapists she knows in the staff canteen at the health centre who were horrified when they saw a soother in her then two-month old's mouth. "They said 'what are you doing?' and I said 'but he's two months, he can't talk'.
"They really see it as not the right thing to do, and say it can interfere in language development and reduces the impetus for talking. Children tend to be zoned out when they have a soother in their mouth, so it really does what it says on the tin." Research suggests that soother use can lead to children not using their lips and tongues properly to produce sound and can lead to lisping.
But can the sudden withdrawal of a soother have long-term psychological effects?
"Not at all," says Rogers, who says that children bounce back fairly quickly once parents are on standby "with cuddles, treats and other comforts".
Another approach is to gradually withdraw use, limiting it to a range of situations. "Start by cutting back and tell them they can have it only at certain times, and prepare the ground by telling them, 'Now you are a big boy/girl, you don't need it, it's only for little babies.'
"But be consistent. If you say not in the car, then never in the car. It doesn't matter what happens, whether there's tantrums, you can't cave in.
"When you decide it's time for them to give it up altogether you have to resist all attempts by them to influence you, and if they persist, try to distract them with a game or a song."
She says incentive and reward charts, where the child is given treats for abstaining can work well, "as long as you are not replacing one prop with another. There's no point taking away the soother and then stuffing them with sweets."
"When you decide it's time for them to give it up altogether you have to resist all attempts by them to influence you