?Babies love to suck,? says Natasha Saunders, a paediatrician at Toronto?s Hospital for Sick Children and co-author of Baby Care Basics. Sucking is a natural, calming reflex that helps babies soothe themselves. ?Every child is different and some babies are able to self-soothe without using a pacifier, but for others a soother can be a huge help,? says Saunders. 
Amanda Robertson, a mother of two in Mississauga, Ont., didn?t hesitate about giving pacifiers to her two sons. ?They both liked sucking and I didn?t want them sucking their thumbs,? she says. (She worried that thumb-sucking would be harder to stop later on.) ?A soother you can just take away once it?s run its course,? she says. Her eight-month-old son Oliver has had a pacifier since he was a month old. ?Once I had firmly established breastfeeding, and he?d taken a bottle for the first time, I offered him a soother.? When should you introduce a pacifier"

Most experts recommend waiting until about the four-week mark before offering your baby a soother. ?Ideally, babies born at term should have established breastfeeding before you offer them a pacifier,? says Saunders. There is some concern that introducing a pacifier too soon could interfere with an infant?s breastfeeding latch, cause nipple confusion, or even cause a mother’s milk supply to drop because the baby is sucking at the breast less. Though some research has found that pacifier use is associated with quitting breastfeeding earlier, experts ha...