Community Newsletter: Q&A: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb
- 1/25/07 5:41 PM
Thumb Sucking
by vroger - 1/26/07 8:38 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dear Lee:
I don't think that most people will like to hear this, but there is really nothing wrong with the Thumb Sucking. In my experience- (after 2 boys) those kids who suck their thumbs, have a much lower chance to be smokers in later life- In any event, a band aid to prevent the rawness from getting worse is what I'd suggest. I personally don't believe in the whole weaning off process. It happens by itself,. Neither of my boys smoke or have any "oral" fixations. VRR
Thumb sucking
by rosebudz24 - 1/26/07 9:03 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I'm a grandmother of 2 boys, and a mother of one daughter.
My advice is to let her have a pacifer to suck on, especially for sleeping.
Then later, it's easier to throw the pacifer away than to throw her thumb away.
Some kids go through the sucking stage, and it can take a year or two to break, but it's better than them still having the habit years down the line.
It's usually the kids who had nothing to suck on in their earlier years that continue to suck on something, (thumbs,arms, blankets,etc), when they get older.
Just hang in there, and don't let everyone give you a bad time about the pacifer.
It's only temporary.
Grandma Geek
Her Thumb is a Pacifier!
by joejax - 1/26/07 9:04 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Give her a pacifier. She obviously needs the sucking and self-soothing.
Pacifier
by uglo - 1/26/07 9:05 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Please give this child a pacifier (if at 10 mos. it is not too late). With my first child people said no, no, don't give him a pacifier and I did not. He sucked his thumb and that caused his front teeth to jut out. With my second child I listened to no one, gave her a pacifier and she was content, I was content and her teeth are still beautiful. Just my three cents worth. Children now are 41 and 37.
thumb raw from thumb-sucking
by paari - 1/26/07 9:06 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Seek the advice of your pediatrician. Question is: how raw - is it in danger of infection? That's what your doctor can help you with.
End to Thumb Sucking
by PC-PILOT - 1/26/07 9:18 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Jalepeno (pepper) Juice. Works like a charm and VERY quick results. As soo as you see the chile sucking, just apply a small bit onto the thumb. And, unlike another reader's case where the child got used to the taste of tabasco sauce, there is less of a likelihood that an aquired taste will result with the pepper juice.
Thumbsucking
by Drubinson - 1/26/07 9:28 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Freeze some plain or better- whole wheat BAGELS ! They are the BEST. Being frozen gives them anesthetic properties, and the kids can stick their thumbs through the holes and hold on !
And be patient. Remember, you rarely see an adult sucking his/her thumb.
All the best-
DR
thumb sucker
by entrenedor - 1/26/07 9:43 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
She's young. Don't worry too much about it right now, even if her thumb does become a little raw, it won't hurt her. My daughter's thumb is the same way. My other daughter quit sucking hers on her 5th birthday exactly.
Sucking thumb
by Galactic Cannibal - 1/26/07 10:04 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
hey lee,
There is no good answer to stop a child sucking its thumb. The worst thing to do is to keep nagging the child. So depending on the mix and level of the childs genes it can keep sucking its thumb into adulthood. That is the extreme as in the case of my youngest daughter. Who is now an MD. But at 25 she still sucked her thumb, and then it gradually faded away, (the sucking I mean not the thumb). GC
Fix, tried and true for ages!
by vonheise - 1/26/07 10:41 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Both my children did just fine with pacifiers. My daughter threw hers away around age two. My son was a little tougher. He would lose them, and we would go buy another. When we decided to wean him at three, he would keep finding old ones. He was nearly four before we got rid of the last one. We talked him into throwing it into the fire place. He is not showing any ill effects as a full scholarship computer engineering student at the University of Tennessee. (If we had taken the pacifier sooner, his entire life may have taken a different turn!)
Thumb sucking cures...
by Majere26 - 1/26/07 10:58 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Lee,
As a father of three children (14,3, and 2) all of my children had pacifiers and did some suckling at one point or another. The three and two year old are still young so this habit may still develop, but as it hasn't yet, I'm not too worried that it will. My fourteen year old has other habits that you as a parent will see are far worse than a ten month old sucking her thumb. My advice is to allow her to do this. At ten months, which is about the time all three of mine began teething, this is likely just to help to make her mouth feel better with teeth ready to break the surface of her gum line. My children all had really bad tempers during this stage and that was harder to deal with than them sucking on something. My wife and I kept a teething ring, not a pacifier, in the freezer. Whenever the kids got fussy, we would rub a little bit of baby ora-gel on the teething ring and let them suck/bite on that and it seemed to work well enough. After all their teeth came in, we would just get rid of the teething rings. They would usually disappear sometime in the night when the kids were asleep.
Be patient and try not to fret over this. During this stage of her development if this is the worst problem you're facing, then count yourself lucky. As they get older, the problems only get worse. As for anyone telling you horror stories about overbites and stuff, we need to remember, this is only a set of temporary teeth, they are inevitably going to lose them. Be supportive of their habit during this stage but try to discourage it as they get older, like say 3, or 4. Commonly, most of the parents I have known have tried the tobasco, jalapeno, whiskey and many other remedies. Like most childhood habits, this is only a stage and they will eventually grow out of it. The suggestion made by some members to distract the child with something else or to keep that hand busy is a good idea. Better than most of the others I have read. If you feel the urge to try something, try that. Perhaps it'll lead to some creativity, or a more active childhood for your little one.
Thumb sucking little rascals
by woli - 1/26/07 10:59 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My kids were cute little thumb suckers (we preferred that to those ugly pacifiers) and so is my grandson, and guess what? Thumb sucking is SELF-LIMITING -- you need do nothing except forget about it! 
If the thumb gets raw enough, it will hurt when it hits those teeth and she'll throttle back on her own.
Show her the other thumb! Just yesterday, we showed our litle Sammy he has a left thumb, so he checked it out. Still likes the right one better, but at least he knows there's an alternative.
Pacifier in place of the thumb.
by chrisdyu - 1/26/07 11:10 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi!
I am sharing the same problem as you with my son. When he is younge, there was once he suck till his thumb was sore and the skin cracked. We asked the doctor and the doctor said we could try putting ginger or hot sauce to make him stop but nothing really can be done for the wound. He said that it will heal because my son will stop sucking when it hurts. The doctor was right. My son stopped sucking until the wound got better. He is now almost 4 and unfortunately is still sucking but at least it does not reach to the point that he gets sore. His thumbs are of different sizes though. The one he sucks is "bloated" when compare with his other thumb. What we do for him is we gave him a pacifier (Avent - very good pacifier and baby bottles/nipples) to suck during the night. Like someone mentioned here, we were told not to give pacifier to the baby but I regretted not giving it to my son when young. So now our daughter (1.5) uses pacifier. My reasoning is when you want to wean them, it is possible to get rid of the pacifier. There is no way to get rid of the thumb. Now might be a good time to introduce the pacifier since your baby has wound in the thumb. She will have something to suck and her finger will not hurt.
Helping her thumb to heal
by loric8 - 1/26/07 11:17 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My second daughter did the same thing when she was little. She kept her thumb in her mouth entirely too much and made a sore around her nail bed. The more she kept it in her mouth the worst it became. At night when I put her to bed I would put maximun strengh neosporin on it with a banbage and then put a sock on her hand all the way up her arm. Doing this helped her thumb to heal. By doing this she became attached more to her pacifier. I am sorry that I can't be more helpful with her thumb sucking, but maybe this can help you with getting her thumb to heal.
thumb sucking
by Ardy Mattox` - 1/26/07 11:18 AM In reply to: Advice needed to wean 10 month old daughter off her thumb by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hey, I know from personal experience that thumb sucking is very satisfying.
My mom tried everything...nasty flavors, even a little glove thing she sewed. Nothing NOTHING worked! I was terrible. I deformed the roof of my mouth sucking my thumb...made my teeth weird too.
My advice is to get the child transfered to a pacifier just to keep teeth/mouth safe.
Nothing worked...just time for me, so good luck! Sorry to have no real solution, but just a warning. My teeth have always been a mess because of the change of the roof of my mouth.
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