AM has been a long time thumbsucker. (Look, I talked about it years ago.) What helped him in infancy still does.
He’s never been an all-thumb, all-the-time kid; it only comes out when he’s tired and ready to go to sleep. From time to time I’ve thought about how the era with the thumb will end, but I was not prepared to do battle over it. It’s not like we can remove it. I figured it would fade in its own time, perhaps with a little nudging, perhaps not. I’ve read Ask Moxie. I know it’s not worth the throwdown.
So when I took him to the dentist, who asked “thumb or pacifier?” from the second AM opened his mouth, what I heard after that was approximately “blah blah BLAH blah blah, yes? BLAH blah blah, blah blah.” (I’m guessing it was something like, “You should probably help him to quit that, yes? Try painting his nails with something bitter or putting a bandaid on it or bribe him with something.”)
Over a few days last week AM had been complaining of a sore tongue. Cut, burn, canker sore, not sure. It was bad enough that it preventing thumb use.
So, you know, it was serious.
On the one hand, happy! dance! because I was imagining proudly presenting his case to the dentist and I didn’t have to do ANYTHING. A triumph of lazy parenting! My favorite kind!
But after two nights of insanely interrupted sleep, I was rethinking the entire thing. I had realized at the end of the first night that the no-thumb-sucking was causing him to stir every 30 to 90 minutes and be upset because he couldn’t soothe himself.
And unfortunately, the bone-crushing exhaustion that comes with that feels kind of unacceptable when your youngest is four.
Finally at four in the morning on the second night, I found him gently sucking his favorite finger and not crying in pain. Yay!
We had a cute discussion about trying to go without his thumb and not succeeding, but being proud of him for trying.
And finally, on the third night, all was right with the world and he slept all night. I…am still recovering.
Hope the recovery goes well. A relative of mine who shall remain nameless but is my sister didn’t stop sucking her thumb until she was 6-ish. When she started getting teased by classmates in school, it stopped during the day. I don’t know how long it lasted at night.
Glad AM’s feeling better.
I honestly don’t know how to stop it when he does it in his sleep, short of staying up for long hours and physically removing it–and incurring mad child wrath. It would help live up to the blog name, I guess, although “cranky and miserable” is only implied.
Love the thumb-sucking. Or finger-sucking. Whatever it takes. And they can find it themselves. I know, I’ll be paying the price in dental work, but I think it might be worth it.
I love the way my teeth formed due to my thumb sucking, which I love till today. My thumb fits perfectly and I hardly have to open my mouth. So, parents, don’t worry, you may NOT have to pay for dental work after all! 🙂
You are a wise woman. The “choose your battles” approach has worked for me for many years.
no advice here – I sucked ’til age 3. My mom got me to quit then I got shingles(!) and started again, and sucked during the day until mid-kindergarten.
One of my siblings sucked his thumb into his teens.
he got away with no braces, though… go fig
Our dentists gently suggested our daughter (also 4) needs to stop as well but like AM, she pretty much only sucks when she’s way too tired to notice she’s doing it anyway, and primarily in her bed trying to sleep. It seems like a senseless battle at that point. So I stick with reminding her what her dentist said if I catch her doing it not in bed, and just let it go otherwise. Like you, I’m just not willing to sit in her room for months on end, removing her thumb from her mouth and losing both of us precious sleep over this.
I sucked my thumb until I was 8. Really. I learned to tell my right from my left because my left thumb was the one with the callus from my bottom teeth. Nothing my parents did made any difference helping me stop. On my 8th birthday I got a favorite stuffed animal and somehow switched dependencies so that I had to have this absurd little pink elephant with me every night. I actually suspected that I would pop the thumb in my mouth at night occasionally for years afterward but it was infrequent enough that my callus went away – and no one ever caught me doing it.
I’ve never heard of anyone going of to college a thumb sucker. I bet he stops when he’s ready. I’d rather have a secure child with braces than one of bad memories and feelings associated with being a thumb sucker. How’s that for lazy parenting justification?
I am all about not having bedtime battles. Seriously. My insomnia has made it so that I am LOATHE to make bedtime a stressor of any kind. (Except when Miss M seriously misbehaves; then she can’t read before bed…this causes ANGST.) But generally: You want a light to go to sleep? Fine. You want to fall asleep in my bed? Fine. You want two pillows? Fine. You want MY pillows? Ok. You need an adult to stay with you? Also fine, to a point…eventually we try to detach from that, mostly because falling asleep at 8:30 means that all kinds of boring adult things don’t get done.
I sucked my thumb until I was 11 and then weened myself in a week because I had a school trip.
I do have an over-bite which our (rather unpleasant) dentist blamed on the thumb sucking.
However the orthodonist said that was rubbish. She said my bite was influenced by my jaw shape and could only be ‘corrected’ by removing several healthy teeth which she didn’t recommend.
I’m sure AM will stop when he needs to.
My 6.5 yo son sucks the first two fingers on his left hand, upside down (his palm faces up) and twirls his hair with his other hand. He doesn’t do it at school, so I don’t know how long it’ll last. I think it is affecting his bite, but both his father and I had braces, so I figure he’ll need them one way or the other.
His new dentist, who is a pediatric dentist fwiw, told me not to stress about the finger sucking. He said kids only do it because they need it, and the trauma of forcing them to stop before they’re ready is not worth it.
Tali sucked her middle and ring fingers until she was five. The thing is, she need the fingers AND the blankie at the same time. The blankie was disintegrating in front of our eyes and one night had to be washed because her sister had vomited on it (which explains alot about their relationship now). Anyhow, lo and behold, I discovered that without the blankie, she didn’t suck!
The next night, I gently asked her if we could put her blankie in the closet–if she felt like she needed it, she could go get it. She accepted that and never went to get it. It was enough for her to know it was there. And that was the end of her finger sucking….
Two words: bribery works. 🙂
Not at age 4, of course, but when they’re older – say 6 or 7, when they want to stop anyway, because:
(a) they’re starting to find it embarrassing, and/or
(b) they heard the dentist tell their parents that their teeth are “crooked”.
Giving them an incentive (read: huge bribe) to stop during the daytime helps them when the urge to suck is irresistible. And, in my experience, the nighttime eventually follows the daytime naturally and without any parental intervention.
He really doesn’t ever do it during the day. When it comes out in the evening and he’s not in bed yet I know he’s super exhausted. That’s the hard part–it’s a completely unconscious self-soother. I can’t imagine what would replace it in terms of similar sensory stuff.
I thought to myself that I didn’t remember commenting to this post before I realized that it was another Kathleen 🙂
I remember the dentist telling my Mom the same thing and they tried the fingernail painting etc. It didn’t really work until I was ready to give it up. Those lazy parenting approaches are my favorite kind too!