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My niece is a finger sucker. She sucks two or three fingers a lot of times during the day. She's days away from being 5 and just started t-k yesterday. her little baby teeth protrude forward and dentist said its because of the finger sucking. I imagine it's going to be a hard habit to break. you can take away a pacifier, but you can't take away fingers. I'm bringing pacifiers with me to the hospital when it's time for me to deliver my baby.

Finger/paci sucking doesn't always mean that your baby will have protruding teeth. I didn't take either and had a horrible overbite. I imagine that finger sucking will be a hard habit to break because you cannot take fingers away.

I'm surprised your husband didn't like the Wubbanubs! That is the only paci H would take we just got rid of the paci but the animal is her lovey. I just detached the animal from the paci several months ago and it made it easy to get rid of the paci.

My sister sucked her fingers FOREVER. Like maybe until 10 (eventually not in public but definitely at home). She had an awful overbite and got braces eventually.
My mom told me when LO was born "you can take away a paci, you can't take away his fingers". And a lot of pacis now are shaped to minimize dental impact. So we always gave a paci. He took it and didn't ever seem interested in fingers anyway.
But I'm a big believer in defaulting to my ped if I'm unsure. If your ped says it's ok and not to worry, then I wouldn't worry. They do have our babes best interest at heart.

As for the wubbanub, my son took them but they popped out easily. Once we switched to Dr Browns they stayed in much better. But I did eventually cut the animals off the couple we had and now he plays with them and sometimes wants to sleep with them. You can always do that (even if LO doesn't actually suck them) so you have some cute little stuffed animals.

DS was given a paci in the hospital after he was born by one of our nurses and we just continued with it after. He's nearly two and only gets it for nap and sleep now and we do plan to wean him off it in the new year. He has two wubbanubs and they were awesome when he was super little to prop them up, and I'm happy we can cut off the paci part eventually and leave the animal. He's also obsessed with his little A+A blankie so I'm hopeful he has enough loveys when the paci goes away! Good friends never had their daughter take any paci or fingers (they tried!) and it was definitely tough when they were out of the house to soothe her while running errands, but now they don't have to break the habit. My brother was a paci addict as a baby and never had dental issues, while I gave up my paci early and had braces! I don't think it's always a huge issue, and I'm not really worried about it for DS. I know fingers are harder to break the habit of, but maybe you could introduce another lovey? DS rubs the silky edge of his blankie on his cheek for soothing as well. As PP's said, I don't think it's a big deal and they find what they like on their own...eventually the habit will hopefully go away but for now, oh well.

I introduced the dummy in the hospital. I'm a big fan of dummies! That said, the drawback is that both of my babies spat their dummy out in the night and cried until I put it back in (then fall immediately back to sleep). I moved S to her own room recently and it sucks getting up several times a night to reinsert the bloody dummy!

I introduced the paci within the first 2 weeks of both my kids lives. I didn't want them sucking their thumbs since it's a horrible habit to break. With my 3y4m we just took the paci away on his 3rd birthday and it was completly without issue (he knew it was coming).

We really tried to get my son to take a paci but failed. He sucked fingers briefly, but never really took to it. So he doesn't suck anything (except my boob).

My reason for trying to get him to take a paci was that it's easier to break the habit of a paci than fingers. My best friend's daughter really struggled to stop sucking her fingers. As she got older (around age 3-4) her fingers/hand would get super red/chapped/raw where she still sucked and she tried to stop but she wasn't even aware she was doing it, it was such an ingrained habit.

To me, that benefit outweighed the benefit of always having your hands with you, which is the major benefit of fingers over paci.

But it's totally personal preference. I don't think either is "right" or "wrong" and a lot of the time the kid is going to do what they want no matter what you do anyway. and, my kid wouldn't take either, so oh well!

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: ce la vie!

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: If mine need a wash, I hand wash them in the sink. So that's an option too, especially if the paci is still attached. Now that it isn't, I put them in a mesh bag and wash them with her clothes.

@JenGirl: agreed! Sometimes, the child's preference is so strong you just have to go with it, no matter what your plan was.

My son was a pacifier addict. He got it in the hospital and it was love at first sight. The thing with pacifiers, though, is that they do damage the soft palate, so it's best to wean a child from them well before they turn 1. After that, the damage does get done, no matter how well designed they are.

DD occasionally took a paci but preferred sucking her ring and middle finger on her left hand. We took away pacis at about 4 months. I don't mind the finger sucking she only does it when she's tired- so that's a good indicator of when it's bedtime or naptime.

Ultimately you can push one or the other all you want but it's your child who chooses.

@ShootingStar: It pushes around the roof of the mouth, all that soft tissue and could cause (in children that are predisposed to it, as my son is) to have a pointed roof that will require flattening/widening later in life.

I purposely kept pushing the paci to avoid having a finger sucker. Sucking on anything is going to have consequences, teeth out of line, impact on mouth shape, delayed speech. I wanted something that I can limit and eventually take away. A was three months before she really took to a paci. But I prefer it this way because I can limit it to when she's very upset, or sleeping.

We push the paci to avoid finger sucking. I can take a paci away - I cant take a finger away...so I've always preferred the paci.

Both my girls have been comfort suckers from day 1...

@looch: how does it get fixed?

I didn't intorudce a paci for a while, nor bottles since we were having latching issues while breastfeeding and I wanted to make sure we were good on that front first.

So DD didn't really take to a pacifier till like 4-5 months; but I desperately wanted her to, to help with self soothe!

Now at 20 months we still haven't gotten rid of the pacifier. I think she has picked up finger sucking too either on her own or from daycare; so I actually feel like pacifier is a "better" option than finger sucking!

@Cherrybee: We got lucky because once W falls asleep he stops sucking and it falls out of his mouth. So we use it to get him to sleep but not having it doesn't wake him up. I guess eventually he's still going to need to learn to fall asleep without it, though.

@looch: Interesting...my sisters and I used paci's for a while and none of us had to have anything like that? I had head gear bit I think thats different?

So its not a guarantee they will need it?

@Mrs D: From what I understand, there are differing degrees of severity. If you're predisposed to having a mouth shaped that way, the use of a pacifier will aggravate it. But some kids don't need any kind of adjustments, I just happened to have a whole lot of problems going on (I had an overbite, and underbite and a cross bite).

@looch: gotcha...perhaps thats why none of us had this...

Thankfully - we took DDs paci when she turned one for everything except nightime - she uses it to fall asleep then it falls out...so I am not feeling too worried about 1 hour or so a day!