I have always had a hard time figuring out the line between politeness and standing up my son. He has always sucked his fingers, and on two separate occasions total strangers have pulled them out of his mouth and said he shouldn't do that. The most recent situation happened yesterday. My parents has been over and were leaving. B was tired and cranky, and cuddled up against me with his head on my shoulder. My mom asked him for a kiss and he shook his head no. So then she leaned in and kissed him anyway, and was rubbing his back, and grabbed his foot and was kissing his leg, and I was just cringing. I have in the past had a talk with her about how we're trying to teach him that if somebody says no we respect that, but clearly she's forgotten.

So how would you have handled these situations? With the strangers taking his fingers out of his mouth I had resolved that next time I was going to firmly say "please don't do that" but then it never came up again. My mom is a tougher situation because generally she makes me nuts and I need to be sure that I'm not just overreacting. Maybe a calm "he's tired and grumpy, I think he just needs some space"?