Thumbsucking - Butler,PA

Tell her she is only allowed to suck her thumb in her bed. She may need to go in her bed for 5 minutes to get a "fix", but she will not stay in her bed long because there is nothing to do in there except lay down. You can not take the thumb away, but you can allow her to get her fix when she needs it. If you are out in public, tell her to wait till you get home. Give her something else to do..like color wonder markers for the car or grocery store time, so she uses both hands to play.
Good Luck.

Hi A., Take it from me, thumbsucking is far more than just another "bad habit" that parents think they need to "break". Your daughter is sucking to self-comfort. Sure at some point she needs to stop, but she has to decide that for herself. Encourage her to not suck durring the day...or to keep her thumbsucking to her room, but realize that she is still really little and you may have to continually remind her. Don't ever use the pepper/nasty tasting stuff on the thumb to "break" this habit...if it works (and usually it doesn't) look at what it did to your husband...not a good solution. There are many differnt effective methods and good dentists will be able to help you. Our dentist helped us through 3 binky habits...(our oldest gave up her binky and took up thumb sucking) and with help from our dentist and our orthodontist that habit was worked through as well. As your daughter gets older discuss this habit with your dentist. Best wishes

Dear A.,
I hope thia will be an easy one to figure out. Every night after dinner my husband and I would take turns lying down with out children and read them, or have them read a book together. Because of the difference in ages of your children, I guess one of you would take the 2-1/2 yr. old and let the 7 year-old finish his homrework while the other parent does the dishes.
The book that you read to the 2-1/2 yr. old would have finger puppets (you could make) to go with the story. If that is not possible, try a glove or mitten with a homei-made arrow taped to it to point out pictures and things in different books.
if you are interest in teaching the child to read, I recmmend the book by Glen Doman, "How to Teach your Baby to Read." It worked for all three of my children.
I would make sure that after dinner was a special time for reading and quieting down for the evening. It set a very nice pace for our family. Good luck....busy hands are happy hands....keep your little one's hands busy, and she won't have time to suck.
E.

I wouldnt force her. i was a thumb sucker till much older than i am willing to admitt, it did shift my teeth slightly but teeth move on their own over time and once she quits doing it (which she will) they will move again. Dont stress over it!! i stopped when i got old enough to be embarrased about it, but most kids stop much earlier than that on their own.

My husbands dad but cotton with duct tape on his thumb one night and that was all it took to get him to stop sucking his thumb. Good luck! I am still trying to get my 3 year old off the nuk.

My 7 yr old daughter sucked her thumb until age 4.5. I agree with the mom who mentioned the teeth moving back...especially if your dentist is not worried...I would not worry about her teeth being affected yet.

My parents nagged me about some things when I was little, and I refused to go crazy on this issue. We started talking about stopping when she was about 4 yrs 3 months, gently and she herself decided she'd stop. The nightime was hard, our dentist had us use medical adhesive tape around a popsicle stick broken so it went over her thumb on both sides to help keep it out of her mouth when she slept (we did this about age 4 yrs 9 months). She was so good, she'd even remind us to put the tape on her thumb if we put her to bed and forgot and even would remind us at night. Her thumbsucking went away so fast...I can hardly remember now, and it is a sweet memory of a cute little baby habit.

So our experience is that you should let them self soothe still for another year or so and then start talking about being a big girl and trying to stop, and how can you help her, should you remind her, etc.
don't make it a big nagging battle.

Lots of love to your sweet baby girl!
Andre