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Home › Articles › Guiding Baby's Development › How Old Is Too Old for the Pacifier?

How Old Is Too Old for the Pacifier?

Two Moms and an Expert Sound Off

By Lisa A. Goldstein

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Nicole lost her first baby tooth while biting into an apple at soccer practice. When they got home, Jaffe prompted Nicole to throw away all her pacifiers, and to her great relief, Nicole happily marched to the trash can in the garage and threw them all away. "That was it," Jaffe says. "She is now 7 and her front teeth are not crooked."

Pacifiers Are OK, but Only for a While

Lisa Levin Reichmann of Gaithersburg, Md., and her husband – along with her mother-in-law, a pediatrician – agreed on only allowing their three children (2-year-old twins and an 8-month-old daughter) to use a pacifier until 3 months old, and then encouraging them to self-soothe with their thumbs.

"I did it for a variety of reasons," Levin Reichmann says. "First, because I just don't like the use of pacifiers once newborns are past the stage where they are not able to self-soothe, but mostly because I didn't want to have to deal with weaning them from it once they were older." She knows too many parents who had a really hard time weaning when their children were well past 12 or even 24 months of age, and feels that especially at that age, pacifiers can affect speech development.

"It's just a personal pet peeve of mine, but I think it looks ridiculous to see a 2-year-old (or older!) out and about with a pacifier in their mouth," Levin Reichmann says.


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Re: How Old Is Too Old for the Pacifier? by Traci on 10/06/2008 11:27PM

I think pacifiers should be taken away by the first birthday. It drives me nuts seeing 2-, 3- and 4-year-old kids running around with one in their mouths. Sucking is a reflex in small babies, not toddlers and preschoolers. Enjoyed the article. Thought it was a very interesting debate on a common subject.

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