No, not me, you maroons…the four-year old!
She’s a truly addicted thumb sucker. She’s aware that she should give it up but goes and hides to do it or sometimes stays up late to get a good session in.
Anyone got any tips? She honestly tells us she’s trying to stop but well, it’s not working.
You can buy some stuff in the drugstore called Thum. It’s a liquid that you paint on the nails, and it contains something hot and spicy (not sure what) but harmless. If she’s truly trying to stop, this might help her.
My 13-year-old sucked her thumb until she was nine. We used this stuff with limited success (but didn’t start using it until she was about six; maybe we would have been more successful if we’d started sooner). When she was nine, she said to me “I’m not going to suck my thumb any more; I’m too old for that now” and she never did it again! Of course, between the thumb sucking, and a genetic predisposition for a jaw that’s set too far back, she’s going to need surgery in a couple of years.
Good luck!
They stop when they’re ready. Don’t worry about it.
Speaking from my own experience, there is very little that you can do to make her quit. If she wants to, that’s a different story.
(I stubbornly sucked my thumb until I was 8–Thum didn’t help–and I have heard of people making it to 16 without their parents’ knowledge…)
Anyway, I would suggest an incentive program. Stickers for every day (possibly every morning/afternoon/evening) with no thumb, and when the habit is broken, a pretty new nightgown/bathrobe set or bed comforter or whatever. As a former small girl, I think something physical and permanent is best, rather than a dinner out or ice-cream. She’ll be able to look at the item and be proud every time.
Self-discipline is pretty dang hard for a 4-yo. It may take quite a while, so good luck!
(dangermom, mother of a thumbsucker, looks at her own future…)
I wouldn’t worry about it. Both mine sucked their thumbs (+ index finger). It gradually eased off until it was just a going-to-sleep thing and then not at all. Don’t make a big deal about it.
Another vote for “don’t worry about it.” Our daughter sucked her first two fingers instead of her thumb. We let her do it and when she was about five, she stopped. Yours will, too, eventually.
Is there a reason you want the kid to stop? It’s a comfort thing, pick your battles. There will be other, more relevant things you’ll want her to stop doing–booger eating, for instance.
I sucked my thumb until I was 10 years old. I don’t know how well it would work for your 4 year old but this is what I did. If I felt the urge to suck my thumb, I’d time myself, allowing no more than 3 minutes at a time. Eventually the urge wore off. How at 10 years old I devised this plan, I have no idea. But maybe you can keep an eye on the girl and tell her she can only do it for X mins?
My brother confessed to me when he was 23 that he’d woken up in bed with a woman and realized his thumb was in his mouth. Fortunately, she fell asleep before him and woke after him.
I’m in the leave 'em alone, they’ll stop when they’re ready camp. SOME thumbsuckers will end up needing orthodontia, some won’t. My brother didn’t, whereas I, who never sucked my thumb, wore braces for years.
My dentist has a great program: He calls the child every day and asks them if they sucked their thumb that day. If they can go for 4 weeks without sucking, he will take them (and their parents) out to dinner wherever they want (usually McDonalds, if it is chosen by the child). He is retirement-aged now, and has walls full of polaroids of kids he has helped to stop sucking their thumbs.
Sometimes it makes a difference if a non-parent holds the child responsible.
Also, have you had her bite? Sometimes lip-chewing and thumb sucking can be caused by the teeth not meeting up quite right.
My youngest sucked her thumb until she was six, then stopped of her own volition. She had said she would stop when she started kindergarten, but apparently she couldn’t do it, because she changed “when I’m five” to “when I’m six”. She never did it during school, even in kindergarten, so maybe she was able to ease out of it. Even after she stopped, though, when I would wake her in the morning the thumb would be right next to her mouth. I don’t know if it fell out during the night, or if she just kept the hand there by habit.
My younger brother sucked his thumb until he was three and nothing my parents did or said made any difference. And then one day he announced he was not going to such his thumb any more. When they asked why he said the dentist told him his teeth would be crooked if he did. Not like Mom and Dad hadn’t told him the same thing!. I guess he just needed to hear it from somebody he’d believe.
I personally know two grown adults who still suck their thumb/finger.
One of them is a friend of mine from high school. Her parent’s had tried every trick under the sun to get her to stop, and as far as I know she still sucks on her second finger (the one between the middle and index) to this day. (Okay, at least 3 years ago, at age 27 she still did. I haven’t seen her in a while.)
The other adult is a guy (and he would kill me if I said who, even though he’ll probably never read this message board). Suffice to say he’s 31 and still sucks his thumb every day. He knows he shouldnt, and feels guilty about it. Hides it from most people. Apparently his parents tried a few things but gave up easily and were basically in the “he’ll quit when he wants to” camp.
So um, yeah, the point is I have no idea how to get someone to stop sucking their thumb.
…and no, neither person mentioned above is me.
My parents nagged me into giving up when I was five and I wasn’t ready. Braces would be cheap compared to the desolation I felt when I didn’t have that self-comforting thumb to rely on anymore. I didn’t become a serial killer or anything but it did hurt a lot at the time.
Have you helped her find something to replace thumbsucking with? A soft piece of fabric or stuffed animal to hold against her cheek or a special cd to listen to when she needs something comforting?
Good luck to all of you.
This is OK.
But do you know anyone who will suck MY thumb or finger? Cuz man,…
I sucked my thumb till I was about eighteen. Still do it very occasionally when really really tired. You might think that’s a bit embarrassing but it doesn’t worry me all that much. And for a four year-old it perfectly fine. Leave her be. Most normal children quit of their own volution. And should she decide to grow up as crazy as a Pookah instead then the thumbsucking is the least of your worries. 
I also have a uncle who is IMO (and that of plenty of women) a very attractive guy who was still sucking his thumb the last time I had info on the matter. He was about 45 at that stage.
I sucked my thumb till I was about 12.
Then you had the transition from “lower school” to “upperschool” where the age was from 12 to about 17.
The first time I stuck my thumb in my mouth, people started laughing at me.
I quit in about 2 seconds flat.
IOW : it will sort itself out.
Does she have an extra finger?
This is a hard one. My daughter sucked her thumb until about age 8 and she just wouldn’t respond to constant nagging. She went to the orthodontist because her teeth were quite crooked and he installed a “rake” (A metal cage in the upper palate, that stops the suction) along with braces. That stopped her…now she’s not interested any more.
I think if she didn’t have the habit, she might not have needed braces. I don’t know. She’s got beautiful teeth, now.
I probably shouldn’t say this, but I was a long-time thumb-sucker and my teeth are straight—in spite of all the dire warnings I received as a child. The anti-thumb-sucking campaign in my household mostly served to put an emotional wedge between me & my parents, and give me an early lesson of what a fundamentally bad person I am. I’m gonna have to agree w/ those who say don’t sweat it too much. Teach her not to do it at sleepovers and quit by the time she lives in a college dorm and she’ll probably be okay, I’d imagine.
It is a comfort measure for them.
JC, your daughter’s position as #1 Kid has been usurped by the arrival of a pesky little sister. She is bound to have her nose out of joint, even if she does not outwardly show problems, inwardly, she has lost her big slice of the MAMA pie because of that THING in the car seat.
Just let her do it now, but maybe start with the stickers program to be an incentive to stop or control herself so she doesn’t do it in Kindergarten (germs…germs…germs…all those snot nosed children…AIGH) Eventually weaning her down to TV time. Possibly weaning off of nighttime because if they do that for an 8-10 sleep time every night, you are going to have serious braces issues in the future.
On a rather amusing note, a friend of ours has/had a chronic thumb sucker. That thing was in his mouth 2/3 of the day, except at school.
When the kid broke his thumb sucking right arm and it was in an L cast, there wasn’t one adult who knew him that didn’t burst out laughing at the image of this kid desperately trying to reach his thumb on a non-bending arm. We figured it would break his habit.
Nope. He just went to twirling his hair with his left hand until the cast came off and then went back to the thumb.
His teeth are really fucked up too.