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Growing Smiles
What the AAPD says about dummies and pacifiers, including the age it suggests aiming for. This page gives the guidance with its hedging intact — including the AAPD’s own point that the link between habits and dental changes is associational rather than cause and effect.
A pacifier is one of what the AAPD calls non-nutritive sucking behaviours — sucking that is not for feeding. It groups pacifier use and thumb or finger sucking together, and states plainly that these behaviours are considered normal in infants and young children.
That is the starting point and it is worth holding on to. The guidance below is about duration, not about whether the habit should have existed.
Lots of babies like to suck on something — that is completely normal. As you get bigger, your grown-ups will help you stop, and your dentist can help too.
The sentence that changes how the rest reads: the AAPD states that the relationship between oral habits and unfavourable dental and facial development is associational rather than cause and effect. It also notes that duration of force matters more than its magnitude. So this is not a simple story of dummy equals damage, and it is not something to feel judged about.
Four statements, all from its guidance on the developing dentition:
Note how carefully that last one is worded in the source: it has been suggested. This page keeps that phrasing rather than converting it into a rule, because the AAPD did not write it as one.
Three things worth knowing.
The AAPD states the duration of force is more important than its magnitude, and that resting pressure from lips, cheeks and tongue has the greatest impact on tooth position because it is sustained. Hours matter more than intensity.
Not a deadline, and not a threshold at which something happens. The AAPD frames it as guidance that has been suggested, delivered through early dental visits. If your child is past it, that is a conversation rather than a failure.
The AAPD situates this in anticipatory guidance at dental visits — meaning it is something to work through with your dentist, who has seen it many times.
The AAPD frames this as anticipatory guidance — a conversation at routine visits rather than a treatment.
Raise it at a routine visit. This is precisely the sort of thing dental appointments in early childhood are for, and it is better discussed before it becomes a worry than after.
There is no emergency version of this question. If you are anxious about it, that is still a good reason to bring it up early rather than to wait.
My child is older than the suggested age and still uses a dummy. Bring it to your dentist rather than reading further. The AAPD’s 36-month figure is a suggestion delivered through dental visits, not a threshold, and it explicitly describes the relationship between habits and dental changes as associational. What matters now is a plan, and your dentist has helped many families make one.
The AAPD associates long-term non-nutritive sucking with anterior open bite and posterior crossbite, and states the relationship between oral habits and unfavourable development is associational rather than cause and effect. Whether anything has changed in your child’s mouth is for a dentist to look at.
The AAPD groups them together as non-nutritive sucking behaviours rather than ranking them. See Thumb sucking.
There is not one, and the framing is worth resisting. The AAPD says it has been suggested that children be helped to stop by 36 months or younger. That is guidance to work towards with support, not a date after which something goes wrong.
The AAPD notes some evidence that changes resulting from sucking habits persist past cessation of the habit, which is the reasoning behind the suggested age. Whether that applies to your child is an examination question.
Ask your dentist. The AAPD places this within anticipatory guidance at early dental visits, which means it is a supported conversation rather than something to solve alone from the internet.
Every clinical statement on this page comes from the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry documents below.
This website is for education only and does not replace care from your dentist, physician, or emergency services.