Pacifiers and Swings....

...These are a few of my favorite things!

When Murdoch was born he loved to suck on your pinky finger. For about 6 weeks or so that worked well. We didn't leave the house that often and it wasn't that big of a deal to sit around and hold him with one arm and use your pinky on the other hand. But as time went on our hands were not always clean and there wasn't always a way to wash them.

We had tried a pacifier a few times but he always spit them out. I know that pacifiers are very controversial but Murdoch is soothed so quickly by the pinky finger that we knew we needed some type of alternative if we wanted a little downtime so I thought that by pushing the pacifier then maybe we would get our hands back. Over the course of about 3 days I continued to push the pacifier and it finally took - at least a little bit. A lot of the time he just chews on it so it falls out and you have to put it back in - he hasn't figured out how to do that by myself. But gradually it is getting better so he is able to sooth himself with just the pacifier.

Then we introduced the swing which was borrowed just in case he didn't like it. Well he loves it! There is a mirror and a mobile on the swing and he loves to look at the little animals on the mobile as well as himself in the mobile. So he spends a decent amount of active play time in the swing and then drifts off to sleep.

So far he is able to sleep without the pacifier and without the swing so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we don't have a terror in the future when we have to take these things away. I guess either way you pay - either now with the constant use of my pinky finger or in the future when we have to take the pacifier away. Initially I thought it would be a great idea for Murdoch to be a pacifier-free baby. Well like many things that happen once you are a parent - there are things that sound good until you are faced with reality - if something isn't bad for you baby and you get a few free moments of quiet to get a few things done, usually you go with it - at least I do.

Here are a bunch of pictures of Murdoch with his pacifier, swing, and a combo of the two.