Question:
Sometimes my baby wakes up crying in the middle of the night, and I try to calm him by placing his pacifier back in his mouth. In handling the pacifier, I sometimes end up touching the pacifier nipple, i.e. the part that goes into the baby’s mouth. In these situations, I have just woken up from sleeping and have not yet washed netilas yadayim. So is there an issue here if I end up touching the nipple with unwashed hands?
Answer:
It is better to wash your hands before handling the pacifier, however if you did touch it and it is still before also hashachar, it is alright.
Best wishes
Sources:
V’ha’ish Mordechai 2 pg. 6, Poskim including R’ Y. Cahen shlit”a. This is because we can rely on the poskim that say that during the night we don’t have to wash our hands coupled with the fact that she didn’t touch a hole of the child’s body and not to food ( even though the pacifier is going into the child’s mouth.
