Yuck … there is nothing worse than watching your baby drop his/her soother onto the floor of a fast food restaurant bathroom (it’s always some place like that). Usually, this ‘droppage’ occurs in ultra-slow motion as you mouth the word ‘NOOOOOOOOO’ in a weird voice.
We started Oliver on a soother soon after he was born and initially we tried out the only type of soother chain that we could find locally, a Nuk pacifier clip, in hopes of preventing contaminated soothers and extra boiling to sterilize the ones that had hit dirty floors and you couldn’t just get away with wiping it off on your pants. But … the Nuk clip wasn’t very cute, the ribbon between the two clips was too short, and the ribbon itself began to fray almost immediately.
When Oliver was three months old we flew to Germany to visit family, and because airlines always stick passengers with babies in the same row (so they can keep each other awake during a ten-plus hour flight in tag-team screaming unison), we sat next to the cutest little German baby who happened to be wearing his soother on the coolest Schnullerkette ever. I pretty much got off the plane in Frankfurt, immediately headed to the nearest children’s store, and purchased two by German toy company Selecta (including the frog one pictured above). Made of colourful wooden beads (more eco-friendly than the plastic ones) with fun themes like giraffes, pirates, frogs, cats, flowers, and more, these chains have a safety clip mechanism that helps the chain come apart in the middle if your baby gets tangled up (and can easily be re-clipped). Not only will you never lose another soother or watch one hit the floor in slow motion, your baby will love playing with the beads and will be stimulated by the bright, beautiful shapes and colours.
Since crossing all of Canada and the Atlantic Ocean to get to a completely different continent just to find the perfect pacificer chain, I’ve seen variations of these wooden soother chains on the internet and in some local specialty stores. The most common ones that I see in stores are the Haba pacifier chains, but I personally prefer the Selecta brand because I just think that they are nicer. Selecta and Haba pacifier chains are available from on-line retailers Baby Naturopathics or Blueberry Forest Toys starting at $19.50 CAD or $13.95 USD.
