My LO was never a pacifier baby - constantly would spit it out. But he started sucking his thumb (late in the game) around 9 months or so. Now he's sucking his thumb mainly to soothe (when he sees strangers, when he's tired, when he's trying to nap in his crib, etc).

I recently went to a picnic where almost everyone I encountered tried to get LO to stop sucking his thumb. They would pull his finger out of his mouth every time he would put it in. One mother (who has four kids of her own) told me to make a plan where I would flick his thumb every time he tried to suck (this includes napping and nighttime sleeping) so she said to count on 1 week of me not sleeping to achieve this...

so the question is - is thumbsucking bad? Is this something he will grow out of eventually or should I actively try to stop him now so that it won't be harder later when he is 5 yrs old?