Thumbsucking and Pacifiers

AT WHAT AGE DO YOU THINK A PACIFIER AND THUMB SUCKING SHOULD END?

8 Total Votes

1 year 3 37%

18 months 4 50%

2 years 1 12%

3 years or older 0 0%

This is a touchy subject for me since my husband and I have been working very vigilantly for the last 3-4 months on getting our daughter who is 3 years old to stop sucking her thumb. I can't say we have the answers because we are still working on it but I can tell you what we have done and what hasn't worked.

First, the difference between pacifiers and thumb sucking is such a different thing. We have had one out of three children suck a Binky. The thing I didn't like about Binky is it seems like we were always trying to find Binky's in the middle of the night, or in the middle of church. It could be stressful. But weaning from the Binky was so much easier then weaning from the thumb sucking.

Thumb sucking was so nice when they were babies. All my thumb suckers were great sleepers. Went to sleep on their own at a very early age. But when they get older, it is very hard to break the habit. The thing we have learned so far is it's so much easier to break the habit when they are younger. We started working with our first thumb sucker when he turned two years old. We just put socks on his hands and would check on him during naps and at night to see if the socks were still on. When he learned to take the socks off we used the Carter one piece PJ's with socks underneath and ducked taped his socked hands. It took a couple weeks and he completely stopped. Yes it was hard for us to explain to a two year old who didn't really understand but it worked without too much drama. We didn't start working with our daughter until she was three.

We started with THUM polish you paint on their finger nails. Totally didn't work. Then we tried Thumb Guard. Our niece used this and learned to stop sucking her thumb. These are a soft plastic guard that are attached by disposable bracelets that lock on to prevent thumb sucking. Sometimes if we didn't put the guard on tight enough she could get her thumb out and still suck on it. The first month we tried it we didn't take off the guards everyday. Her thumbs got so red and sore. So the second month we learned to put the guards on at nap time and then we took them off in the morning. This helped keep her thumbs healthier but she still had really dried out thumbs. After we ran out of bracelets the second time (the replacement bracelets were really pricey) we thought she was done and were way excited. A week later she started sucking her thumbs when she went to bed. I was so discouraged.

We have finally found something that is working. We put a band aid on each thumb when she is going to bed and we tell her that when she wakes up if she still has the band aids on she gets in the treat basket. She loves it. She has gone at least a week of keeping the band aids on. After she gets her treat we take off the band aids and wash her hands so they stay healthy. The key here is she wants to keep the band aids on so it's her decision. Also we have to be committed to remembering to put the band aids on and reinforcing the behavior of not sucking her thumb. I also think the thumb guards helped initially break the habit and the band aids are now just a reminder to her.

We really have been working on this since her third birthday in June. You decide what is more painful for the child. It's a hard call. We have an 18 month that we are deciding now what to do. I think were going to go for starting younger. What if parents don't intervene? Will a child just stop on their own? I haven't known any adults who still suck their thumb, at least I haven't noticed Devin doing it at night. =) Just kidding.