It happens so naturally, you may not notice until the damage is done: suddenly your baby screams his or her little head off the instant they’re parted from a pacifier, bottle, or blanket. Many small children have comfort objects, and the experts often say that taking them away can cause other, less desirable habits. However, there is a certain modicum of sanity that we, as parents, need to preserve – and that means setting limits.

Everything has its place. Children always need to know limits, regardless of what it’s about. The disastrous consequences that come from not setting limits on comfort objects are just one example. However, an appropriate limit doesn’t necessarily mean taking the pleasure away from your child.

For example, if your child is becoming attached to his blanket, a number of issues can surface as a result: a trailing blanket can present a safety issue to a child, and blankets that are carried everywhere can just as easily be left somewhere, causing meltdowns or even problems sleeping. To remedy these potential problems, you might restrict your child’s blanket privileges to bedtimes, naptimes, and illnesses. This prevents the blanket from getting lost, and since the child won’t be carrying it everywhere, you won’t have to worry about him or her tripping over it, either.

Another common comfort object is a bottle or a sippy cup. Usually this starts out as a ploy to stop a child from crying by keeping their mouth occupied. However, this backfires, as children are smart enough to realize the lengths you will go to in order to keep them from crying. As a result, the child starts crying more and more frequently, until you don’t even bother trying to take away the cup or the bottle anymore. However, this can have disastrous effects, as well. Not only has your child learned that they can get their way by crying (a discovery that they will plague you with, have no doubt of that), but the constant flow of juice or milk can have a negative impact on the child’s health. Constantly sucking on a bottle or cup can move a child’s teeth, creating serious bite problems and therefore the need for expensive orthodontic work. The sugars in the juice or milk can also cause decay in the child’s teeth. Additionally, the milk or juice will fulfill the child’s daily caloric needs, which means he or she will either gain unnecessary weight, or simply not eat at meals, depriving the body of necessary nutrients found in other foods.

Probably my biggest issue, however, is with pacifiers. These have absolutely no value other than shutting a kid up when you don’t want to hear them, and create a whole flood of problems. The same orthodontic issues that are true for bottles and sippy cups are a result of pacifiers, although these problems may be somewhat worse, as pacifiers tend to be more of a constant thing. Pacifiers also delay and distort speech skills. And pacifiers are a breeding nest for all sorts of germs. My feelings on pacifiers are that you should avoid getting your child attached to them at any cost – or, at the very least, start weaning your child off of their pacifier as soon as they leave babyhood.

If your child’s attachment to a comfort object is not checked, there is the potential for any number of health, safety, and emotional issues to arise. Setting limits is not about being mean or unfeeling toward your child: it’s about being a good parent, and being able to look ahead and avert problems while your child is too young to be able to do so for him- or herself.