Baby can't keep dummy in?

[liz1222]

Hi all, is it normal for my 6 week old baby not to be able to keep a dummy in? Every now and again (maybe once every 2/3 days) he'll keep it in himself, the rest of the time we have to hold it in for him.

I'm happy for him to have it as it soothes him and I don't mind them, but I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to help him get the hang of it?

Were bottle feeding using tommee tippee bottles and so far I've tried the majority of the bigger branded dummy companies (MAM, avent, tomme tippee, nuby)

Any advice would be great :)

I think some babies just love them and others don’t. My daughter doesn’t usually take one...I’ll hold it in for a few seconds sometimes until she starts sucking reflexively and then it stays in. For a bit. More often than not she spits it out again.

Is there a particular reason you want her to have one?

Maybe he doesnt like it or want one? Is there a reason why you want him to have it? If you're not hugely bothered maybe just leave it for now.

If he was really sucking on it then it would stay in. It sounds like he's not actually wanting to use it, and you're just shoving it in and holding it there.

If he's spitting it out then leave it out. I'm anti-dummy though so I am biased and maybe wrong about him wanting it.

You want him to have one? He doesn’t seem so keen. Chuck it!

My two didn’t like dummies, which was fine by me (I’m not anti dummy - else obv I wouldn’t have tried! But they are apparently a complete arse to ‘give up’ when the child gets older and can mess up your teeth). Both kids just wouldnt really keep them in.

One of them got a thing for labels on muslins (sucked or fiddled with them) but I don’t think the other one had anything.

He might have a tongue tie or a high palate so he can't suck well. Does he feed ok?

He is also very small, my 3rd didn't really latch onto the dummy until about 3+ish months as the teat was just too big. Equally some children are not dummy orientated. Don't worry about it too much.

He loves it so much it's not that he doesn't want it, he cries for it and it calms him down instantly. He moves his head to the side if it falls out tries to get it back in and gets him worked up.

We had to stop breastfeeding (this was before I gave him a dummy) because he wasn't feeding well and lost too much weight. How do I check for tongue tie?

Have you got a breastfeeding drop in group near you? They looked at my baby for tongue tie as she struggled to bf and didn't gain weight until after tongue tie was released. Not all health visitors are trained to check and tbh if he is now bottle fed and gaining weight they might not do anything about a tongue tie unless it's really bad and affects speech later.