Pacifier how long? Until when your baby can suckle

How long can a pacifier be used without risk?

In order to keep the risk of developing misaligned teeth as low as possible, dentists recommend that you start weaning your child from the pacifier at the latest when they start kindergarten. Many dentists even advise an earlier weaning after the first year of life, so that the tooth misalignments described below do not occur and lead to subsequent speech impediments. For many parents, however, this is not feasible because the pacifier does a lot of the work for them in terms of soothing and calming. However, you can make sure that your baby only uses the pacifier occasionally up to the age of two, for example when falling asleep.

The pacifier is not a constant companion

It’s okay for parents to give their baby a pacifier when they’re screaming or crying, when they’re tired, or when they just need to calm down. But the pacifier should not serve as an emergency stopper. The use of the pacifier restricts the baby in his grumbling, his smile and later also in the development of language. Among other things, it prevents your baby from expressing his pain, joy and other feelings. So the pacifier should not be available all the time, but should be used in a targeted manner at certain moments. This also makes it easier to get used to later.

Late effects of excessive sucking

The consequences of constant sucking are definitely worse for the baby than what your baby experiences in the moments when you give him the pacifier to calm him down. The following late effects of excessive pacifier use are known:

• Drooling : If your child constantly has the pacifier in their mouth, they will start to prefer mouth breathing. It just keeps it loose in its mouth. The consequence of this is that pathogens and germs can get into your child’s body unfiltered. “Breathing through the mouth” also causes increased salivation. Your child starts drooling.
• Misaligned teeth : Too much sucking on the pacifier can affect the growth of your baby’s teeth. For example, the teeth can grow crookedly forward or the jaw can be misaligned. The misaligned teeth come about as follows: Your child has to close its lips when sucking and bite and bend the shaft with its teeth so that a negative pressure is created. This in turn leads to an enormous effort of the jaws. The natural interplay of lips, jaw, teeth and tongue is interrupted. This often leads later to complex and expensive orthodontic treatments.
• Speech defects : In addition, the extreme sucking can also affect your child’s language development. Children who have the pacifier in their mouth very often later tend to lisp more often and sometimes also show other speech defects. This is due to the following connections: The naturally given front spatial limitation is no longer given due to the sucking open bite with the gaping incisors when using the pacifier. This can result in the child being unable to make hissing sounds. The child may later lisp. The muscles that are used when speaking have no opportunity to be “trained” and so the child can no longer form certain sounds later.