Why Do MAM Pacifiers Get That Sour Stinky Smell? And What Actually Works To Fix It
6:27 a.m., my 10-month-old is standing in her crib, babbling loud enough to wake the dog, and I’m fumbling around the sheets for her pacifier. I found it under the stuffed lamb, wiped it on my sweatpants out of habit, then paused to sniff it. That same weird, sour plasticky smell hit me, the one I’d just gotten rid of three days earlier. My husband stumbled in holding a sippy cup of water, saw my face and said, “Again? I thought you boiled all of them Sunday.” I held it out to him, he sniffed, and made the same gagging face I just did. “That’s gross. It’s clean, how is that possible?”
I’d been dealing with this stinky MAM pacifier problem for almost two months by that point. My first kid used plain old one-piece pacifiers from the drugstore, and I never had this issue. But this baby refused every other brand we tried—she’d spit them out, scream, turn her head like we were trying to feed her pickles. MAM was the only one she’d take, so we stocked up, three packs, six pacifiers stashed around the house, the car, the diaper bag. I tried everything to get rid of the smell at first: washed them by hand with baby dish soap every night, ran them through the dishwasher’s top rack, even boiled them for five minutes every Sunday. Nothing worked. Two weeks after opening a brand new pack, the smell would creep back, faint at first, then strong enough that I could smell it when she had it in her mouth sitting on my lap.
I posted in my local mom group about it, got 40 replies. Half the people said they just lived with it, that MAM pacifiers just do that. A quarter said to throw them out and buy new ones every few weeks. One person suggested a bleach soak, and I just stared at that comment like, why would I put bleach on something my kid sucks 12 hours a day? Another said to put them in the freezer, which I tried, and it just made the pacifier cold for 10 minutes, the smell came back once it warmed up. I was this close to just buying every other brand on the shelf and forcing her to try again, even if it meant a week of screaming at nap time.
Then one night, I was up at 1 a.m. holding her while she fought a gas bubble, scrolling through the MAM website looking for care instructions, just out of boredom and desperation. That’s when I saw it: a tiny line that said all MAM pacifiers can be twisted apart into three separate pieces for deep cleaning. I stared at the pacifier in the diaper bag next to me, grabbed it, twisted, and sure enough, it popped right apart. I’d had these pacifiers for two months and had no idea you could take them apart. I felt so stupid. I’d been cleaning them whole this whole time, never thinking there was a hollow space inside the shield that water could get trapped in.
The next day I took apart every pacifier we owned, and sure enough, when I dumped out the inside of one, there was a little pool of stagnant water that smelled exactly like that sour stink I hated. The whole problem was that MAM’s vented design—the thing that makes them so popular, since it reduces pressure on baby’s mouth and lowers the risk of ear infections—creates that hollow gap between the two shield pieces that traps water after washing. If you leave it assembled, the water can’t get out, can’t dry, and bacteria and mildew start growing, which causes that smell. It’s not that the plastic is bad, it’s not that you’re cleaning wrong, it’s just that no one tells you you have to take it apart.
I started testing small changes, and found three things that actually work, no fancy products or weird chemicals needed. First, I take all MAM pacifiers apart completely every single time I wash them, whether it’s a quick rinse after dropping it on the floor or a deep clean. After washing, I lay all three pieces separately on the drying rack, not stacked or put back together, until they’re 100% dry before I reassemble them. That one change cut down on new smells by 90% right away. Second, once a week, I soak all separated pieces in a bowl of warm water with one teaspoon of baking soda for 30 minutes, then rinse and dry. Baking soda absorbs the smell without leaving any weird aftertaste or chemicals, unlike vinegar which left a sour tang that my baby hated. Third, I check the inside every month for dark spots—if you see actual mold spots after cleaning, that’s when you toss it, but the sour smell almost always goes away with a soak and proper drying, so you don’t have to throw perfectly good pacifiers away.
I had three old stinky pacifiers I’d set aside to throw away that I revived with this method, and they’ve been fine for six weeks now. I used to spend around $15 a month on new pacifiers, now I buy a new pack once every three or four months, which adds up when you’re already buying so much baby stuff. It’s not a perfect system. If I’m tired at the end of the night, or we’re out traveling and I just rinse the pacifier quickly and put it back together, the smell starts to creep back after a few days. When that happens, I just throw all the pieces in a baking soda soak when I get home, and it’s good as new.
Last week I was at a playdate, and another mom was complaining about her MAM pacifiers smelling bad, and I just pulled mine out of my diaper bag and showed her how to twist it apart. She had the same shocked face I did—she’d also been using them for three months and had no idea they came apart. It’s just one of those tiny, annoying parenting problems that no one puts in the baby books. You read all about how to introduce solids, how to do sleep training, what milestones to look for, but no one mentions that you need to learn a tiny trick to keep your baby’s pacifier from stinking. Right now, this method is working for us, and I’m just happy I don’t have to keep throwing away perfectly good pacifiers every other week. It’s not a big win, it’s just a small fix that makes every day a little less annoying.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Do MAM Pacifiers Get That Sour Stinky Smell