My son is 6, and he sucks his fingers - the index and middle on his left hand. We started working on quitting when he started kindergarten and he was doing pretty well until the pandemic started and he regressed a fair amount. He tends to do it when he’s zoning out watching tv, but it’s not totally mindless - he knows he’s not supposed to and sometimes we’ll catch him checking to see if we’re looking before he does it. We’re trying really hard to be nonjudgemental, remind him to take them out, and reward him when he doesn’t do it, which worked well for a few days and now doesn’t. We’re working on new plans to motivate him (ideas about quitting finger sucking also welcomed!) but in the meantime he’s developed this very disgusting blister on his finger and I’m wondering if I need to take him to a doctor, which I’m super reluctant to do for obvious reasons. So, thoughts? Can I just put an antibacterial cream and a bandaid on it? Or is this infected and he needs antibiotics?

Sorry for the novel and also the gross photo.