Hi,
I didn''t want to give DD a dummy. But it quickly became clear that she had a pretty strong desire to suck. She pretty much wanted to be attached to the breast at all times while asleep. Unless she was in the Hug-a-Bub. I could not put her down once she was asleep. I could rarely sneak away after she''dd fallen asleep on the boob. We co-slept, so it was not the end of the world but I got to the point where I was desperate for her to take a dummy so I could have a break, but she didn''t want a bar of it. She also was beside herself whenever she had to be in her car seat. It was absolutel torture for everyone involved. i first tried a dummy at 6 weeks, but she didn''t want it and I didn''t push the issue. As the weeks went by, I got more desperate and tried again. No success. She was 6 months old when she all of a sudden accepted the dummy. To me it was a godsend. She went down to sleep quicker and car trips were easier, too.
She was BF exclusively until 6 months and continued to BF until she self-weaned at 19 month(probably due to my pregnancy). One of the reasons why I didn''t even consider a dummy with her was because I had BFing problems in the first couple of weeks and a dummy would have been detrimental in this situation.

With DS, I felt that he wasn't quite as boob-focused as DD, but I still thought a dummy might be useful. I wanted to get him used to a dummy earlier to avoid the dummy-rejection I experienced with DD. DS got a dummy at 5 days or so. We had no feeding problems and he only got the dummy in a very controlled manner only when i knew he''d had a good feed and when he wouldn''t settle without one. Never to stretch out feeds. He put on weight like a champ (had surpassed his birth weight by day 5) and he''s still BFing well at 9 months.

I don''t think dummies are the incarnation of all evil, if they are used carefully. But if you have feeding problems, i would avoid them. I''d be very cautious about using them in the early weeks if you intend to breastfeed to make sure your supply establishes well. Never use them to stretch out the time between feeds. Especially in the early weeks, lots of nipple stimulation is the key to a good milk supply. So try and limit dummy time.

Another word of warning: I would strongly suggest you avoid dummies that contain BPA. There has recently been a large European study on that exact thing and there were a handful of manufacturers that we have here, too, that are either BPA free or very very low. Some of the big names did not test so well.