Get That Thumb Out of Your Mouth, Child.

 In our case, we were being laid back with our finger-sucking child until the dentist did an x-ray and pointed out what was happening to the teeth. We worked on it very hard, starting then, and offered the child a reward which, I'm happy to report, was earned with no apparent ill effects.

I was surprised at the dentist lecture, since we'd been told by our doctor to gently encourage our child to stop but to basically leave it alone. Most kids grow out of this, the doctor said.

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I have two thunmbsuckers. We told my 5 yr old he could do it at bedtime. So, he sits on the couch and always says, i am sleeping, let me suck my thumb. Its a tough habit to kick. Hoping we have it nipped in the butt before he turn 6!

 A bunch of you met my son who still does last week. I have given up on him giving it up. His teeth are the straightest of the three younger kids. 

~TW ( http://ramblewoman.blogspot.com )
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My oldest never had a thumb-sucking of pacifier habit, but my youngest does. She will be five in December, shows no signs of being interested in kicking the habit and I don't have any plans to force the issue. She doesn't do it when she's playing, learning or otherwise engaged -- just when she's tired or watching TV. It relaxes her. And as far as I'm concerned it's essentially harmless. 

I think we're quick to blame thumb sucking for our dental issues -- and surely they cause some issues in some people -- but lets face it we'll never really prove that a thumb sucker who needed braces wouldn't have needed them even if he hadn't thumb-sucked.

 There are far more important things to worry about day-to-day in my journey to be a good parent. Whether or not she sucks her thumb when she's tired hardly seems important enough to make a priority.  

But then again, I sucked my thumb long past when society would have considered it okay -- and in despite of all my mother's crafty attempts to get me to stop, too -- so I may have a different perspective than most. ;-)

As a matter of fact one of my earliest childhood memories, I must have been right around four years old, is of laying in my bed sucking as hard as I could while squinting my eyes shut trying to get the hot-pepper nail polish she'd put on my thumb nail off. I sucked it off, scraped my tongue with my fingernails and went right back to sucking.

If they want to do it, they'll find a way.  

I'm a thumbsucker, too. Hey, it's better than drinking as far as habits go. Someone I know who does cranial sacral work says that it's something about pressure on the palate -- it really does calm a person down.

Neither of my kids took pacifiers and neither of them suck their thumbs. Go figure.

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My son just turned 4 and still sucks his thumb. His dentist said not to worry until he's 6 or 7, so I'm not going to. As for the social stigma, yes, everyone seems to want to make a comment ("Can I have that thumb" seems to be the most popular), but I let it completely roll off my back. I was a late thumb-sucker and eventually stopped on my own, so I really don't worry about it. As my grandmother used to say, "Nobody walked down the aisle [insert childhood habit here]."

Indeed, my son's list of excuses was long and sometimes pretty funny. Sure, I had heard horror stories about thumb-suckers, but I figured
that if I didn't force him to stop, he would on his own out of lost
interest or peer pressure. (As the previous commenters have suggested, I thought it would be a better idea to simply not make a big deal about it.)

But unfortunately, his sucking habit had a major impact.

His teeth are severely sucked-in. This happened early on, so I sort of threw up my hands about it for the reasons you note: I knew he'd get braces anyway, so once the damage was done, it was done.

But - his teeth impacted his tongue. This in turn impacted his speech. He cannot position his tongue the way it is "supposed" to be to properly speak. This is unfortunately compounded by an earlier injury that left him without a front tooth. 

The sucking also retracted his eardrums. His ear canal is already curved more than usual, so fluid can build up faster than for most folks. A combination of the pressure and the wax/fluid buildup actually injured his eardrum. He ended up with hearing loss. Of course that, too, impacted his language ability. 

As his peers became older, he lagged behind and was eventually thrust to the sidelines socially since he couldn't hear his peers, nor could they understand what he was saying.

"Thanks" to a bunch of red tape, although we got him into speech therapy once it was evident he needed it, the correction of his hearing took a much longer time. Thankfully he received surgery just a couple months ago, and is now speaking and hearing much better. It is frustrating that he's been through over a year of speech therapy, and yet the improvement he's had since his surgery has been even more dramatic.

The surgery provided us an "opportunity" to stop the thumb-sucking habit. We got a thumb guard and explained to him what it was, and how he couldn't suck his thumb post-surgery because it would physically hurt and would essentially undo what the surgery was meant to correct. It was tough, but he successfully stopped sucking his thumb.

He hasn't sucked his thumb since his surgery.

However, he now chews on toys, pencils, and other such things. We're going to have to make sure he stays away from cigarettes... 

-Kari

ww.kariannaspectrum.com

I've admitted this online before, so I might as well do it again...I'm a thumbsucker. Have been since I was a baby. My mom is a thumbsucker, too. Now, I don't pop my thumb anytime/anywhere, it's just something that happens at night while I'm sleeping.

Neither my mom nor I have had any dental problems related to our thumbsucker, and it's never hindered or embarassed either of us in any way. I think there's a lot more thumbsuckers out there than you think!

She sucks on her middle fingers when she's tired. It makes her feel good. I know she'll grow out of it eventually. Her teeth are fine. Shrug. 

--

My mame is Beth Engel. I've been running my own online business, Epic Merchandise, where I sell personalized, engraved gifts ( http://epicmerchandise.com/ ), since 2003.

After watching my uncle give his youngest son a hard time over his thumb sucking, and my cousin subsequently hang on to his habit all that much longer, I made a conscious decision not to make a big deal out of it when and if the time came with my kids.

Both boys came over from Russia with finger sucking habits - a coping mechanism they learn when no one is there to comfort them at night. My older son dumped his habit in a matter of months with no prompting from me. My younger son took longer, quite a bit longer, but dropped the habit when he was ready.

- Lisse

@ Home in the World: International Adoption and Other Travels ( http://homeintheworld.typepad.com )