When our youngest was a baby, I found his thumb sucking to be heartwarmingly adorable. He could self soothe and I never had to worry about loosing his pacifier. Fast forward 3 years and the habit was becoming a little less endearing. He now has callouses on his thumb from his vigorous sucking and the dentist has informed us that it’s time to kick the habit or we may be spending a small fortune on braces. Our dentist said that if you try to break the habit before 3 years old they will often just switch to the alternate thumb or a finger; but breaking the habit after 3 is usually permanent. We are currently at 3 1/2 and in the process of convincing him to give up his beloved thumb. Since we can’t actually ‘take it away” here’s what we’ve tried.
1. Positive Reinforcement
Put water based marker on the thumbnail in the morning. If he makes it through the day (or nap) without sucking his thumb, as evidenced by the marker still present, then he gets a reward. Can also use sticker chart.
2. Negative Reinforcement
Physically pulling the thumb out of his mouth when you see him sucking it and saying “No, Thumb!” Then encouraging him that “Big boys don’t suck their thumb.”
3. Anti-Nail Biting Nail Polish
Most people I know swear by this method. Daily you paint their nail with bad tasting nail polish, that is intended to prevent biting nails. You can also buy polish specifically designed to prevent thumb sucking. While this seems to work for most, it did not phase our little guy.
4. A Glove
If they mainly suck their thumb at night or naps, you can try sending them to bed with a glove or sock over their hand. Our guy found this too easy to remove.
5. The ‘Apparatus’
If the other options don’t work it, then it may be time to try the big guns, which is where we are currently. We are using a soft plastic thumb guard that attaches to his hand with an adjustable, disposable plastic band. It’s not cheap ($70), but so far it seems to be working. It allows them to still suck their thumb, but it breaks the suction so they get no pleasure from it. They are supposed to wear it for 2 weeks (we’ll be done this weekend). We wash ours daily (it comes with 2) but it still gets a little stinky by the end of the day, otherwise we’ve been happy with it.
Have you struggled with breaking the thumb sucking habit? What has worked for you?
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