Harper Beckham has been photographed in LA with a soother in her mouth. The famous daughter of David and Victoria Beckham is four years old.
The photo has created controversy as many people are claiming that she is much too old for a soother.
Four-year-old Harper Beckham has been spotted with a dummy - do you think she's too old? http://t.co/ojFJ2F7Yup pic.twitter.com/xRbNtBg6zm
— Fabulous mag (@Fabulousmag) August 10, 2015
Soothers are often introduced when babies are small to stop them from crying, or to settle them to sleep.
Laura Haugh from mummypages.ie says there is no role for a soother beyond 12 months old, and she's shocked that Harper still uses one:
"It's absolutely incredibly irresponsible of her parents to allow her to walk around during the daytime with a soother in her mouth, not only for the child's speech development. Walking around with a soother means she's not actually communicating, she's not exercising her facial muscles. But not only that, they're also damaging the ultimate formation of her mouth, how her baby teeth form in her mouth, and also then how her adult teeth then develop."
In Dublin, opinions on the issue were mixed. One lady thought it was ridiculous that a child of four still had a soother:
"Dummies I think are for babies. They're only to pacify them for the first six months of their lives, and then they should be taken off them."
While another woman felt that this issue didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, because the famous girl will have much larger things to deal with in the future:
"They're trying to make her childhood as normal as possible. I'd say the soother is the least of the worries for her growing up. She's Harper Beckham at the end of the day so it's not really going to define her future."
