The trend on TikTok
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In China, more and more young adults are sucking on dummies! Does the trend on TikTok really help to relieve stress?
The trend on TikTok: sucking on adult dummies to cope with stress – a hype surrounding absurd regression, a symptom or a strategy?
A trend from China is sweeping across to Germany. Adults are wearing giant dummies in public to reduce stress, to help them fall asleep, or to soothe themselves. But what is actually revealing is not the dummy itself. It is what it reveals about us.
The trend in figures and pictures
What initially seemed like a curious TikTok phenomenon has now spawned its own product category. Since 2023, millions of clips have been circulating on Chinese platforms such as Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, showing adults – often young professionals in their twenties and thirties – using oversized dummies, not as an ironic statement, but as a serious coping strategy.
The market is responding. Adult-sized dummies, with wider shields and firmer teats, are now available on international e-commerce platforms. The product descriptions sound like wellness promises: “stress relief”, “improved sleep hygiene, “and “calming of the nervous system”.
In Germany, the trend is still marginal. But the discussion surrounding it is no longer.
Stress relief and regression
The psychoanalytic explanation is obvious, perhaps too obvious to accept uncritically. But it touches on something real.
Freud described regression as a fallback on earlier forms of psychological organisation under stress. When current coping mechanisms are overloaded, the psychological system resorts to strategies that worked in earlier stages of development. This is not a failure; it is an economy. The system does what it can.
The oral phase – that is, the early childhood phase in which sucking signifies not only feeding but also regulation, comfort and connection – leaves deep imprints on the nervous system. Self-soothing through sucking is deeply rooted both phylogenetically and ontogenetically. It would be strange if this channel were completely sealed off in adulthood.
Winnicott: The transitional object in the TikTok trend
In his theory of transitional objects, Donald Winnicott formulated something different from Freud’s regression model. The transitional object – the teddy bear, the comfort blanket, the dummy – is not simply a substitute for the mother. It is a symbol of the psychological space between inside and outside, between complete dependence and nascent autonomy.
What interested Winnicott was the function of the object: it creates a bridging experience. It allows one to be alone without feeling alone.
Adults who revert to oral self-soothing strategies during periods of stress – chewing on pens, biting their nails, eating excessively at night, smoking – are essentially doing something similar. The oversized dummy is structurally no different. It is a transitional object for adults who have no better resources available or cannot access them at that moment.
Kohut: Self-objects and the unfulfilled need for reassurance
Heinz Kohut’s self psychology adds a further dimension. Kohut described self-objects – people or things – that take on functions which the self is not yet able to perform entirely on its own. A central self-object function is soothing mirroring: the experience of being embedded in a regulating context.
If these self-object functions were not sufficiently available in the primary relationship, or if they are structurally absent in adult life, the self seeks a substitute. The dummy as a self-object: it does not really regulate. But it simulates regulation. It creates the experience of being held, which is not available elsewhere.
Adults, dummies and the society of exhaustion
Neoliberal society has turned its back on Foucault’s disciplinary model. The mechanism of subjugation through self-optimisation now prevails. The subject of meritocracy no longer has an external oppressor. They are their own overseer. Their own driving force. Their own judge.
The result is epidemic exhaustion—not the exhaustion of the exploited, but the exhaustion of those who constantly exploit themselves—burnout as a pathology of freedom.
In this context, the pacifier trend takes on an unexpected meaning. It is a symptom. It shows just how great the exhaustion has become. How far has the collective capacity for self-regulation declined? How desperately the subject of meritocracy clings to any form of respite, even if that form is categorically infantile.
Infantilisation as a contemporary phenomenon, and its limits
The term ‘infantilisation’ is readily applied in the debate surrounding this trend. However, it deserves a nuanced consideration.
Infantilisation as a social phenomenon is real: the prolongation of phases of dependency, the difficulty many young adults face in acting as self-reliant individuals, the longing for containment in a society that structurally undermines containment. All of this is documented and worthy of discussion.
But the term is also a moral cudgel that is readily wielded against the supposedly infantile, without asking what causes infantilisation. Anyone who criticises an exhausted person for sleeping poorly and resorting to immature coping mechanisms, without asking what has exhausted them, is engaging in symptom-based criticism in the worst sense.
The interesting question is: in what kind of society is it rational to fall asleep with a dummy?
Wellness rhetoric
Pacifier users’ descriptions of themselves sound like wellness marketing: stress relief, improved sleep, nervous system regulation. This is the language of the optimisation society, applied to regressive behaviour to make it compatible with the high-achieving individual. I am not regressing; I am optimising my rest.
This rhetorical trick deserves attention. It shows how deeply the optimisation narrative has been internalised. Even retreating into the infantile must still be framed as an achievement. Even the flight from self-management is sold as self-management.
This is a pattern familiar from other wellness trends: the physical costs are shifted onto the individual, the emotional benefits are exaggerated for profit, and the structural causes remain hidden and thus untouched.
What this trend really says
The adult dummy is a mirror.
It reflects a society in which the demands placed on the individual systematically exceed the resources available to them. It reflects a shortage of genuine rest, genuine connection, and genuine spaces for regeneration. It reflects the inadequacy of a system that produces exhaustion whilst simultaneously demanding self-optimisation.
In psychoanalytic terms: when a subject resorts to primitive oral solutions during periods of stress, this is an indication of insufficient ego resources – not of moral failure, but of a structural deficit. The question is how this deficit arose and how it might be remedied.
The answer would be a society that stops systematically exhausting its members.
Conclusion: Between understanding and classification
The pacifier trend deserves neither knee-jerk outrage nor uncritical acceptance. It deserves contextualisation.
Yes: The need for comfort is human and deeply rooted. Yes: Exhausted people reach for whatever is available. Yes: Moral criticism of those affected without criticising the system is cheap.
No: Oral regression is not a therapeutic strategy. No: A plastic object in the mouth does not regulate the nervous system; that is placebo rhetoric with real dental damage. No: “Viral on TikTok” is not a mark of quality.
What remains is a question that goes far beyond dummies: how far must collective exhaustion have risen before we begin to question the structures that create it, rather than constantly seeking new ways to numb it in the short term?
Questions & Answers
Why are more and more adults sucking on dummies?
More and more adults are turning to dummies to relieve stress, ease anxiety or find peace of mind when falling asleep. The trend originated in China and is spreading rapidly to Western countries via TikTok and other online platforms. From a psychological perspective, it is a regression strategy: under constant pressure, the mind reverts to earlier patterns of comfort. The fact that more and more young adults are turning to this method is less a sign of individual weakness than a symptom of collective exhaustion.
Where does the adult pacifier trend come from?
The trend originated in China, where it first spread on the Douyin platform before gaining international attention on TikTok. There are now numerous videos on social media showing young professionals using dummies to cope with stress. Sales figures for specially designed adult dummies in China have risen to as many as 2,000 units per month for some suppliers, with products ranging from simple models to luxury versions costing up to 60 euros.
Is the adult pacifier a recognised method of stress management?
No. Neither in psychology nor in medicine is sucking on dummies considered a recognised form of therapy. Psychologist Zhang Mo classifies the phenomenon as avoidance behaviour: rather than facing difficult situations and issues, those affected seek simple relief. A dummy for stress management does not address the cause; it merely postpones the problem and can cause both psychological and physical harm in the process.
What do experts say about the pacifier trend?
Experts warn of health risks on two levels. Dentists point out that frequent sucking in adulthood can permanently alter the jaw, leading to misaligned teeth, pain when chewing and problems opening the mouth. Psychologists see the phenomenon as a sign of poor stress tolerance: those who fail to develop the resources to cope with stress remain at risk in the long term, regardless of whether a pacifier is experienced as a harmless stress reliever in the short term. The trend is not a lifestyle statement, but a symptom of a high-pressure society.
Can the adult pacifier help with quitting smoking?
Some users report using the pacifier to quit smoking, as an oral substitute for cigarettes. The oral need that smoking partly satisfies can thus be addressed in the short term. However, frequent sucking affects tooth alignment and the jaw, meaning this approach carries its own health risks. Anyone wanting to quit smoking is much better off with cognitive behavioural therapy.
Is sucking on dummies harmful for adults?
Yes, physically it certainly is. Adults suck on dummies without the protective, elastic jaw development found in young children—the result: permanent misalignment of the teeth, altered jaw joints, and pain when chewing. From a health perspective, the hype surrounding this practice is clearly negative. Psychologically, the picture is more complex: short-term comfort is real, but it does not resolve underlying problems and may even delay the development of sustainable coping strategies.
Why is the pacifier trend particularly widespread among young adults with ADHD?
People with ADHD often have an increased need for sensory stimulation and oral self-regulation. Sucking, chewing, and mouthing are well-known ‘stimming’ behaviours that regulate the nervous system. It is hardly surprising that the trend resonates with young adults with ADHD, given that the need is real, yet the method is costly: both mentally and in terms of orthodontic treatment.
Is the pacifier trend a sign of society's infantilisation?
Is the phenomenon seen as a symptom of societal infantilisation primarily by observers who point to the increasing difficulty many adults have in coping with stress? The term, however, warrants further distinction: it is not the individual who is the problem, but the structures that cause exhaustion whilst simultaneously demanding individual self-regulation. The absurd sight of an adult with a dummy in their mouth is less a cause than a mirror of a society that pushes its members to their limits and is then surprised when they resort to primitive solutions.
Are there more sensible alternatives to the adult dummy?
Yes. Anyone seeking stress relief or help falling asleep will find effective alternatives in evidence-based psychotherapy: progressive muscle relaxation, breath-based regulation exercises, structured sleep hygiene or, in cases of persistent anxiety, psychotherapeutic support. Those wishing to address the oral aspect specifically can turn to chewing gum or oral stimulation tools, which are less problematic from an orthodontic perspective. A pacifier for adults is not a therapy; it is a product that responds to a genuine need with a poor solution.
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