Ok, this is a very controversial topic, and I run the risk of upsetting many parents, but here goes….
This is my personal opinion – it is based on sound theoretical knowledge and several years of experience as a Speech and Language Therapist, plus being a Mummy of 2 myself and previously running TinyTalk Baby Signing Classes where I have seen hundreds of babies and parents with and without dummies.
Dummies soothe young infants because babies have a natural in-built desire to suck, so without a dummy parents can spend hours pacing the floor with their baby trying to comfort them in other ways. When teething starts, babies are often in even greater need of that comfort. This is why I offered both of my children dummies once breast feeding had been firmly established (which was advised by my Health Visitor to avoid nipple confusion). Neither of my children took particularly well to a dummy at first, daughter number 1 later accepted one but only if it was of a particular type, and daughter number 2 found her thumb at a few days old and has always used that to soothe herself (such a nightmare for a SLT to have a thumb-sucking daughter, but I’ll save that for another blog!).
So, great… baby is sleeping at correct time and for long periods, albeit with unavoidable midnight fumblings to put lost dummy back in her mouth – the glow in the dark ones were fab!). Then comes the realisation that both you and your little one are very dependent on the pacifier! You desperately try to put it in when they scream the whole way round the supermarket, or absentmindedly push it into their mouth out of habit as you put them into the car, even though your baby isn’t fussing.
It’s important to remember that crying is one of the few ways that young babies can communicate and when they cry they are telling us something and we shouldn’t always reach for the dummy to quieten them. Talking to them and using all of the other methods that we instinctively do to soothe them may work just as well sometimes.
Now we come to the danger zone! I strongly feel that dummies are good for babies for the reasons mentioned above. There is also some research that suggests dummy use in babies can reduce cot death. You will notice that I am now highlighting the word BABIES.
And here comes the speech and language development part – most children start to babble and say their first words around 9-12 months. If you have a big piece of plastic in your mouth you can’t practice these skills and you are far more likely to sit their happily sucking on your dummy when other babies are crying, shouting, babbling and talking. This is why I got rid of my daughter’s dummy as soon as the main teething stage was over, which for us was about 9 months.
My advice in a nutshell:
Having a dummy up until their first birthday = Fine
Using a dummy after their first birthday = Absolutely not!
It also becomes so much harder the older your child gets to convince them that it is a good idea to get rid of the thing that they love the most. Do it before they realise. Go cold turkey, set aside 3 days where you prepare yourself for the return of sleepless nights, and just get rid!
So there you go. I am sure there are many people with special circumstances who may want to keep using a dummy for all sorts of reasons, but in the vast majority of cases, if you want to give your child the best possible chance of developing their speech and language, they need to have their mouth free of foreign objects! I am sure you have seen the children with dummy-shaped teeth; it also changes the shape of the inside of the mouth which is why they end up needing help with forming clear speech, along with delayed language as a result of not having as much opportunity to babble and attempt words.
Getting rid of the dummy is not easy, I understand that, and its easy to think of reasons why not to do it. But it is one of the best things that you can do for your child. Early language development is a vital foundation for all sorts of things like literacy and cognitive development.
Lots of people say ‘they only have it at night’, and that is far better than having it in the daytime. Make sure you pull it out once your child is asleep and try to swap it for a toy/ give it to a new baby/ Santa/ The Easter Bunny or whatever so that they can be totally free of it as soon as you can.

Good luck!

Hannah Beckitt
Independent Speech and Language Therapist
http://www.speechbubbletherapy.co.uk