On Sucking Thumbs

I would SO love to take credit for this or get some sort of Mother of the Year Award but it was all Mykelle.  She was able to stop sucking her thumb almost OVERNIGHT!  Anyone who knows Mykelle or has been around her for even a couple hours knows that Mykelle is (was:) a thumb-sucker.  And since this winter and my repeated hospital trips it had become much worse.  I would see it all hours of the day, especially when she was tired.

I tried asking her to stop, telling her she was allowed to do it only during nap and nighttime, I got angry with her- nothing seemed to work.  So I looked up online how to help a child quit and many sites say to let it stop naturally and it will usually go away around age 3-5.  Hmmm, it had only been getting worse with Mykelle!

I did end up finding one article online that half made me think it was a joke, and half made me want to try its suggestions.  It said to talk to your child and explain it all- that thumb-sucking damages teeth and gums, that other children will make fun of her, and that it's not a grown-up thing to do.  The article then suggested to tell your child that you, the parent, are "there for her" to help her quit and all she has to do is ask you for help when the time comes that she wants to quit.  I laughed at the article but thought it wouldn't hurt to do all that so I sat Mykee down and we had a chat.  I covered all of the above and the thing she caught onto the most was that her friends would tease her and say she was a baby.

I then took the advice of another article that said to play a game with it- create a "secret" signal shared between child and parent to use when the child forgets and sucks her thumb.  My signal was to stick my tongue out at her and she'd remember.  We had a good time doing that the rest of the day and that night she did her best not to suck.  Throughout the next day we played the secret signal game and I reinforced what we had talked about, and by the end of the day she was DONE.  Can you believe that?  DONE!  I even created a new signal for the following day (finger in my ear with a wink) and never had to use it because she just stopped.  I thought it was a fluke and wouldn't last (though I hoped desperately) but it did last!  It's been over a week and I have not seen that thumb go into her mouth- even when I wake her up in the middle of the night to check on her and she goes back to sleep!

I am amazed that she could stop such a built-in habit.  She has been sucking her thumb since she was only a few weeks old!  Four years of habit... GONE just like that!  I am so happy she did it!  And I want to tell her every day, but then I don't want to remind her of it.  So I will tell my blog and hope I don't jinx it by writing about it too early.  What a strong girl you are Mykelle!