Our toddler is a thumb-sucker. She's been sucking her thumb since she was 4 months old. I was not concerned at the time about this new habit. I liked the fact that I didn't have to keep track of a pacifier, after all the thumb is always there and she could never lose it. In the middle of the night, Lucy was able to soothe herself and I didn't have to get out of bed to stick a paci back in her mouth. Life was good.
Fast forward to the present. I still don't mind the thumb-sucking so much but it's the other issues that are related to it that have to stop. Around 8 months old Lucy also started pulling on her hair while sucking her thumb. This has grown into a bad habit and the two compulsions go hand in hand. We've been putting a sock on her hand during nap and bedtime for a long time now just to keep her from being bald on one side of her head.
In the last month though Lucy has started another bad habit that goes along with her thumb-sucking. She's picking on her face. While she's going to town on the thumb, her index finger is picking on her cheeks. She's had a sore on her left cheek for over a month now that will not heal because she keeps reopening the wound. Her right cheek has 5 small sores and they have yet to heal as well.
I was going to wait until after her birthday and then concentrate on breaking this habit, but when she started picking her face and when it wasn't getting any better, I knew we needed to try and stop this now. Last night was the first night of breaking the thumb-sucking habit. I put a sock on both her hands and used duct tape to secure them to her pajamas. I was a bit worried if she'd be able to fall asleep but it only took about 30 minutes and she was out for the night. She did great at naptime too. She seems to be doing well even though she can't put the thumb in her mouth. YAY!!
We stopped at Walmart after church this morning and bought THUM. It's a bad tasting "nail polish" that you brush on and keeps her from sucking her thumb during the day. There were a few times today that she got mad when she put her thumb in her mouth and then realized it tasted bad. But overall she did pretty good.
4 months ago
2 comments:
We used the bad tasting stuff on Joseph and it worked like a charm. He was a lot older but I thought it might be nice to hear an "it worked for me" story.
Thanks Nicki. I'm finding that the nail stuff isn't working as well as it did yesterday. Today she was sucking her thumb even wtih that stuff on it.
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