sigh…. ”they” tell you to be careful introducing a pacifier into the life of a baby who breast-feeds. the line is typically something like “do not introduce a pacifier until breast-feeding is well established,” and that moment is defined as 3 weeks or a month or so. this is also the time when it’s “safe” to introduce bottle feeding. the worry is two-fold. getting milk out of a breast is harder than a bottle, so if she sucks on something “easy” (paci included) she’ll be less interested in sucking properly on the breast, which can lead to all sorts of supply issues on top of having a baby who doesn’t get enough to eat. the other paci-specific issue is that babies who get all their sucking needs out with the pacifier may be less interested in sucking at meal time, leading to the same supply/demand issues. pacifiers made of body parts (my fingers, her hands) don’t have the same risks since they’re not nipple-like, and we use those as needed/effective. unfortunately, they also don’t work as well.well, we waited as long as we could to start with the pacifier. we might not have needed it at all, had she not gotten so inconsolably fussy/angry/colicy. we hadn’t quite reached the 3 week mark, but since she’d been such a good latcher (from birth), and a hearty eater (drains a breast in under 4 minutes) we figured we were “safe” as long as we used it in extreme moderation. basically, the last resort is a car ride, and the one just before that is the pacifier. we used it a few times late last week, and everything seemed to be fine. in fact, she wasn’t really that big of a fan of the paci. we even tried several different types.all that changed on saturday. saturday was one of our most trying days, and we all benefitted from the moments of quiet that it afforded us. it was just so hard to watch her get so upset (for no fix-able reason) knowing that we could soothe her so easily. saturday night, however, i noticed a change in her latching. she was slurping funny, almost like there was a whole in her straw, and it was frustrating her and hurting me. she was still interested in eating regularly, however.sunday, we tried a bit more moderation with the pacifier, but unfortunately, sunday was worse than saturday so it got used more than we would have liked. she continued to have issues with latching, and was rather insistent that she have *something* to suck on at all waking moments. i acknowledged defeat, and vowed that when we made it through the day, i would cut her off again, no matter how awful it made monday.well, today wasn’t too bad, but she showed another sign of the pacifier’s evil influence. instead of giving her the pacifier when she got fussy between meal times, i put her back to breast. this meant “feeding” every hour or so between 10 and 2. unfortunately, charlotte had learned that she could just suck lightly on the breast to get her soothing fix without being troubled by any pesky milk. fortunately, i could combat that by forcing the milk out, but that just made her cranky. all that extra eating meant for extra fussing and colic, though.we managed to go all day without using the pacifier. it wasn’t until about 10ish that we relented. all her needs were met and she was even swaddled (swaddling makes her happy and sleepy), but still screaming her head off. fortunately, she only needed a few moments of calm before drifting off to sleep.in as much as i can plan one day to the next right now, i plan on treating tomorrow much the same.