To soothe or not to soothe?

An early dilemma for new parents is whether or not to use a soother. It may be a UK debate, but there seem to be two schools of thought: a soother can become a dependency that eventually causes teeth to deform and, when you child gets older, is hard to break; using a soother helps your baby sleep.

For us, the decision was a pretty easy one to make because Kirin has never taken the soother. Instead, he usually prefers sucking on his right forearm when nodding off to sleep.

In the past couple of days, however, he seems to have found a sort of middle ground in the great debate. He has decided that a soother is a fun toy - easy to hold and fun to chew on. This pic was taken this morning.

BTW, if you are wondering why he looks a little teary-eyed and his nose looks a bit messy, it's the cold he's been fighting for the past couple of days.