MAM Air Soothers

Firstly, let me say that I have twin baby daughters who have just turned 13 months old. Both of my girls will take a dummy as they were given them by the midwives in the hospital shortly after they were born. They use them now only to soothe them to sleep. I have tried a number of different of brands, as I didn't want to rely too heavily on any one, in case the inevitable happened and we were to lose it.

I was bought these dummies by a friend, to try when my girls were around 8 months old. Despite repeated efforts, neither of my girls have taken at all to these dummies and I have to say, I don't really blame them! Let me explain why.

As shown by the image of these dummies, they are a very new and distinctive design, different from any other dummy I have tried before. The idea is that there is only a frame of plastic around the teat, so that most of your baby's skin is left bare instead of being covered by the plastic surround. This in theory helps to protect the skin from teething rash, for example, as the skin is left to the elements rather than trapping the drool between dummy and skin. I can see the logic in that and theoretically, it is a good design.

However, in practice, the dummy is big and bulky. The frame extends wider than would the plastic surround of any other dummy, so it takes up a large section of your baby's lower face! The teat, also, is larger than any teat I've seen on another dummy and it is just too big. I realise that teats increase in size as babies grow, and these particular ones are for older babies. However, even taking that into account these teats are overly large and neither of my girls seemed comfortable with them. Although the area immediately around the teat is left clear, the frame itself pushes into baby's cheeks. The result is that when in place, it looks unattractive and, frankly, a little ridiculous on such little faces. Clearly my daughters agree, as these dummies have been discarded quickly on every attempt to use them.

As above, the only advantage I can think of is that they come in a range of bright colours and that makes them easy to spot in a cot or when thrown on the floor. The large size also helps with this!

Practically, I have found these dummies to be quite poor and with so many other varieties on the market, I would pick something else every time.