When Should Children Stop Using Dots?

Illustration (Arie van Ravenswaay/Pexels)

JAKARTA - Pediatrician from the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDGAI), Erriska Riyanti said, children may still use dots or substitutes for breastfeeding for mothers until they are no more than four years old.

"Indonesian Pediatrician Ikatan suggests the use of dots is no more than the maximum age of a 4-year-old child. At that time, (fine motor skills) children were perfect plus swallowing patterns (other than swallowing, smoking since birth)," he said as quoted by ANTARA.

According to the doctor who served as the head researcher at the Department of Pediatrical Medicine, the Faculty of Dental Medicine, Unversitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD), when the child was four years old, his fine motor skills or or oromotors had to develop properly. If this fine motor does not develop properly, the process of mechanism for food entry into the stomach will not go well.

The ability of oromotors, as quoted from the official website of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, is the basis for eating skills, including all activities that use a muscle movement system from oral cavity, such as jaws, teeth, tongue, ceiling, lips, and cheeks, including coordination of movement among these oral cavity organs. Oromotor skills cannot be obtained instantly, but must be trained and studied in stages.

"So, children have to learn to use other muscles around the face after the age of 4. After 4 years of starting to shift using glasses, children can drink by holding their own glass," he said.

Dots are generally the choice of mothers when their children cannot get breast milk (mother's milk) directly from their nipples for various reasons. In choosing the right dot, Eriska recommends a product whose ingredients are in accordance with the condition of the child's oral cavity, so as not to cause allergies or other unwanted health problems.

"From a form that must resemble a mechanism when a child drinks breast milk (from a mother's nipples). Recommendations for orthodontic dots ( physiologically designed dots) that resemble a mother's nipples are the main considerations in choosing dots," concluded Eriska.