My daughter stopped sucking her thumb!
In 2019, I published a blog post about my daughter, Ada, and how she sucked her thumb nearly all the time. I’m proud to report that she stopped sucking her thumb! In this blog post, I’ll recap some of the negative consequences of thumb sucking, why it was important for us to try to stop the habit before she turned three, and how me made it happen. I want to acknowledge up front, though, that every child is different and what worked for us isn’t necessarily the “magic bullet.”
There are many negative dental consequences of thumb sucking, which I outline in this blog post. The one that I’ve been noticing in Ada’s mouth is the underdevelopment of the upper jaw. It has not grown as wide as it should have by now because of the constriction put on it by the cheeks. Even at 3 years old, this is affecting her bite in a way that may lead to aberrant jaw growth. I’m hopeful that the jaw growth will normalize, but I’ll have to monitor this as she gets older.
As I outlined in this blog post, thumb sucking is largely considered normal until age 3, but, because of the jaw changes I was observing, my wife and I decided to try to get her to stop by 3.
So, how did we do it?
- We got her to give up the habit when she was awake. We did this by gently, but consistently reminding her to take her thumb out of her mouth. We would allow thumb sucking when she was in her bed, whether that was for nap or for the night.
- We talked about the consequences of her thumb sucking: about the sore on her thumb and how her thumb was being hurt and how her mouth was being hurt by the habit. We didn’t go into too many details; she just needed to understand that bad things were occurring as a result of her habit.
- We gave her an incentive. We told her she would be able to paint her nails (and choose the nail polish color!) if she quit completely. This made her WANT to quit. As I outlined in my previous posts, the desire to quit is very important. It is nearly impossible to make someone quit if they have no intrinsic desire.
- We put bandaids on her thumbs at night as a reminder not to suck her thumb. Of course, we let her pick the bandaids (Frozen of course) and she really enjoyed them.
- We gave her lots of praise. We would praise her in the morning when removing the bandaids and, once we stopped the bandaids, we would give lots of praise for not thumb-sucking. She loved the praises lavished on her every morning and I think this reinforced her desire to quit.
I recognize that it isn’t always this easy. She has snuck in a thumb suck every now and then since she officially stopped. Some habits are harder than others to break. I’ve discussed other cessation strategies in this blog post but my first-hand experience tells me that the psychological approach is so important before any physical approach is employed.
If you or someone you love is suffering some negative effects from thumb sucking, please call us at (757) 229-4181. The consultation is complimentary and we can’t wait to help!
