As your baby reaches his toddler years, you may start worrying about letting him continue to use his pacifier. For many children, the pacifier represents a transitional object or way to continue comforting themselves until they learn more advanced coping skills. However, after age 2, some negative effects can result from allowing a toddler or older child to use his pacifier, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Problems with Dental Development
Some babies experience problems with the positioning of their teeth as a result of habitually sucking on a pacifier. Their front teeth may protrude toward their upper lip, resulting in an overbite. This is not a large problem with baby teeth because they may return to their normal position and eventually they fall out. However, if you allow your child to continue using her pacifier past age 4, her permanent teeth may grow in incorrectly.
Delayed or Improper Speech Development
As early as 12 months, your child may begin experiencing negative effects from the pacifier. At 12 months, your baby is learning to speak and copying language patterns from you. If he is speaking through his pacifier, his speech can sound distorted. The pacifier can alter the way he holds his tongue in his mouth and interfere with his lip and tongue development. This can result in a lisp or delayed speech development.
Ear Infections
Children who use pacifiers are more prone to middle-ear infections. Those who do not use pacifiers have 33 percent fewer ear infections, according to BabyCenter. Sucking on the pacifier might affect the pressure in the child's ear, which can leave him open to infection, states Dr. Marjo Niemela of the University of Oulu, lead researcher on the study that discovered the link. Stopping pacifier use at 6 months may prevent future ear infections.
Delays Self-Soothing
An important part of growing up is learning to self-soothe during times of distress. While it is normal for babies and even toddlers to want to hang onto their pacifier as a transitional object, you need to determine when your child is ready to be finished with it. Children who use pacifiers to help them sleep may not learn how to get themselves back to sleep without the pacifier. Even more serious, if your older child relies on the pacifier to ease feelings of discomfort, he may not learn how to cope with stress in a constructive way.
