My son recently was at the dentist to get a tooth extracted and she mentioned that we had to work on getting him to stop sucking his thumb. I realize that is not a great habit to have long term but he just turned two so I thought we had some time to work on it. She said that it is starting to move his jaw and we could possible get a habit breaker (fixed palatal crib).
I think he's still two young for this but was just wondering if anyone has any experience with these or has any suggestions on ways to discourage thumb sucking.
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My LO has been a thumb sucker since she was in my tummy
She is such a great sleeper so I didn't want to mess with it. She mostly sucks her thumb in her sleep. She did go through a phase where she sucked her thumb in the car but we would just do gentle reminders "please take your thumb out of your mouth" and she was very responsive and had no problem complying. We gave her some stuffed animals for the car and that distracted her.
We've asked both her dentist and pediatrician about it and so far they both have told us they can't tell she's a thumb sucker but we're still stressing about it a little bc we don't want it to be traumatic for her. Our general parenting philosophy is transitions are easier when baby is younger - not true for everyone but has been true for our LO.
She's 2 years 7 months and we have just started to try to discourage thumb sucking. We're lucky it's just at bedtime but it makes it hard bc I don't want to disrupt her sleep. We started by putting little mittens on her hands and that worked fine. She never took them off and was able to sleep fine. The only thing is the weather started to warm up. So now we put bandaids on her thumbs at nap and bedtime. It works and she still sleep great thank goodness. We've tried taking them off and her thumb ends up in her mouth (and when she wakes up her thumb is all shriveled from being wet all night - gross I know). So we just keep doing the bandaids and it doesn't bother her and she doesn't put her thumb in her mouth when they're on.
Hope you find something that works for your LO. Good luck!
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Similar to sandy. DS is almost two and a thumb sucker mailnky when he is tired or sleeping. If I remind him "thumb out" he takes it out. I'm going to talk to pedi about it at his 2 year visit, I don't know how to get him to stop altogether--just hoping he stops on his own.
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@sandy: @matador84: Thanks for the suggestions. My LO is also a great sleeper and usually sucks his thumb when he's tired. He wouldn't keep on mittens and since it's finally warming up here I think I will try using a bandaid and see if it discourages him. The dentist said that it takes about 6 months of no thumb sucking for the brain to totally break the habit.
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@sandy: I am going to try the mittens or band aids!
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friends of ours had this problem with their three year old - they just stayed up watching her sleep one night (she sucked her thumb in her sleep mostly) and took her thumb out everytime she put it in her mouth - one night and it was done!
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@autumnlove: good luck! I hope it works for you! We've been lucky that she hasn't ever tried to take off the mittens or bandaids but I definitely worried about that. I've heard some people use long socks and layer a long shirt over so their LO can't pull the socks off
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@RsMom: my LO isn't a thumb sucker but BiL's youngest was. Like your LO at her 3 year appointment her dentist said her teeth was starting to push out and they needed to stop the thumb sucking ASAP or she might need braces. I think it helped that she was older so she understood more. To be honest sometimes she she still sucks her thumbs and she's 4. But it definitely isn't all the time like she used to.
Good luck!
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