Thumb sucking.
It is something that everyone seems to have an opinion on whether kids should or shouldn’t suck their thumbs, but in my experience it really isn’t up to the parents! You can encourage the use of a pacifier, but as I soon found out…it isn’t a sure thing!
Pacifier vs. Thumb
My oldest was a thumb sucker. We pushed the pacifier nearly every moment of his first few weeks home, but he resisted and would end up with his thumb in his mouth. The good news is that no child ever wakes up in the middle of the night looking for his thumb! It is an easy thing for all involved to have what soothes to be attached safely to his body.
The problem is when it is time to start weaning, it is still attached to his body and quite automatic in its powers.
What worked for me was when he was old enough to understand, we had a conversation about how as he would get older, he wouldn’t suck his thumb. I started with just suggesting that we stop sucking thumbs while he was up during the day. I never really addressed naptime and nighttime, because I felt like I couldn’t be consistent enforcing that. The daytime ban worked really well. There were a few times that he forgot, but we had a silly sign between the two of us to remind him – I would playfully put my thumb to my mouth and he would giggle and remove his thumb.
The nighttime thumb sucking continued for several years, but I really feel like he wasn’t developmentally ready to give that up. Eventually, he did. And he has had braces to correct some front teeth protrusion, but overall it has been pretty uneventful.
My other two took a pacifier…which is a whole other story I will save for later!
Here are some of the best answers from our Facebook community
We asked our FB community {we heart you!} for some ideas and suggestions that worked for them. Here are some that we found interesting. You can click on the conversation box above for all the answers if this is something that you are researching. Isn’t great that we can share with each other?
These are some of our thumb sucking stopping tools
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Here are even more great thumb sucking articles for you
Super smart online moms are always a good place to check out. Here are some resources about stopping thumb sucking.
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