<p>LOL. One avid nurser played the clarinet, but quit at the end of middle school. The other plays the violin. They must be getting their oral fixes elsewhere.</p>
<p>My orally-fixated kid didn’t suck his thumb - he used a pacifier for 4 years. (I tell you that at the risk of being booed off the board. One of the cardinal sins of motherhood.) Neither of my other kids would touch one, but this kid was so happy with it, I would have been willing to let him take it to college. But hey, it apparently built up a great embouchure.</p>
<p>binx, I won’t be doing any booing. All four of my Ds were pacifier babies. :)</p>
<p>binx, my firstborn used a pacifier that long, too. He seems to have survived just fine. My second would have nothing to do with a pacifier, but sucked his thumb until 5 or 6. (Or was it 7??) At that point the dentist referred him to a pediatric orthodontist (or something like that) who talked about different things we might have to do to get him to stop sucking. My son didn’t like the sound of those alternatives, so he stopped on the spot. (He always was a determined kid!)</p>
<p>that reminds me of another perk I attribute to nursing
I had major braces ( extractions- two headgear at same time- need to cut ligaments…) I was a month early and spent a month in hospital and wasn’t nursed( premies tend to have a more shallow sublingual arch)</p>
<p>My D was 10 weeks early- spent 8 weeks in hospital , wasn’t nursed till 4 months old, but although she did have braces, they were pretty straight forward, no extractions, no headgear.</p>
<p>My 2nd D was was term, hasn’t had braces at all- and her teeth are fine
- Ok she did have braces for 10 minutes-I have moved on <a href=“H%20has%20had%20braces-%20as%20did%20our%20siblings”>/i</a></p>
<p>OH well, EK. My S spent three and a half years in braces despite being breastfed!</p>
<p>My d nursed for a full year & also sucked her thumb. In an ultrasound, she is sucking her thumb. No pacifier. In grammar school, when thumb-sucking was forbidden, she admitted to periodically ducking under her desk for a “quick fix.”</p>
<p>I have a niece who at one point her pacifiers were her best “friends”
I remember coming to visit my sister, and having her toddler approach me, dumping about 5 pacifers in my lap ( and she was nursed)</p>
<p>Did I look like I needed one? ;)</p>
<p>My kids refused pacifiers. They were breast-fed but both required extractions & braces. S played trumpet from 5th grade thru 12. D plays violin. Both are social/recreational music-lovers.</p>
<p>Hmm - maybe it’s the pacifiers. All 3 of mine were breast fed, but two had terrible teeth and required extractions (like, 7 apiece or so) and braces. The middle one - the pacifier user (pacifist? 
) - has perfect teeth.</p>
<p>j/k - I truly don’t believe that pacifiers or breast feeding has much relation to braces later on (we were told that the pacifier was going to cause S trouble, and it went the opposite way!) Easy to see genetics at work in our family. In my kid’s case, though, I do think that oral need continued, and I’m glad he meets it with a horn rather than a cigarette! </p>
<p>And a somewhat related comment (although not to the original topic) - I’m really glad that the horn player did NOT need braces – ouch!</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ll have to go with the theory that breastfeeding doesn’t help children avoid braces. Both of mine had braces; younger son had to go through two different sets of braces. (Not fun for a trumpet player!)</p>
<p>I crossposted with you, binx. Yes, braces are a pain (literally) for trumpet players.</p>
<p>Son is majoring in trumpet and had braces. The braces were not needed for beauty-teeth were straight, I think it was more for better bite. That plastic strip thing worked well on the braces. While pregnant I wasn’t too into the breastfeeding thing-I researched the minimum amt of time needed to pass on antibodies and that was going to be it. I think it was a matter of days. Didn’t work out that way, he developed a rash to everything but water and breastmilk for quite a while. Maternal instinct took over after son was born. Allergy testing showed nothing-best we could come up was a vaso vagal thing. He could eat the powder Nurtramigen mixed with baby food but couldn’t drink it w/o becoming spot.</p>