Thumb Sucking Kids – image licensed from Shutterstock
Because many parents asking me about their toddler thumb sucking habits I decided to write a quick post about it, hope it helps some parents out there checking my blog.
First of all, it’s OK not to do anything about it! It’s not going to affect them physically or emotionally. The only problem would be teeth problems if they continue to suck beyond age 5-6 years (the time the first permanent tooth erupts). However, even this problem is not really backed by evidence based research, I know people talk about it all the time but I don’t think there is real scientific evidence with it, if there is one then please email me and I will update the post.
All infants are born with a need to suck (beyond eating), Freud called it the oral stage in his psychoanalytic theory and some babies even suck their fingers in the uterus before birth. So they need something to suck on. Some pediatricians even think that allowing an infant to suck on a pacifier (binky) might help extinguish the urge for them to start sucking their fingers later in the toddler years.
The other problem that you often hear about is that thumb or finger sucking can cause ear infections. This one too, is not backed by real clinical trials or scientific evidence, so I don’t buy that too.
Thumb and finger sucking can cause skin infection and peri-oral dermatitis. Yes, this is true, and if that happens we need to deal with the eczema and the infection in the pediatric office.
How to deal with Thumb Sucking?
The first important point to remember, is we should wait for the child to be mentally mature enough to understand what we are trying to accomplish here, so that he/she understands that we don’t want them to suck their thumbs. Most kids are not able to have this understanding until they are 3 years old. So save your efforts until then and really there is no real problems to wait until then.
I tell my families, that the first thing we can work on is the daytime thumb sucking. Tell your child you cannot suck your thumb during the day, it’s OK you do it at bed time. This is because the bed time sucking is usually harder to stop than the day time behavior.
Use a sticker chart. Make a game of it. I’d start easy first, like they get a sticker if every time you tell them to get their fingers or thumb out of their mouth and they actually do it so then the get a sticker. Then gradually build it towards to where they themselves remember not do it, not just you reminding them. Breaking up the day to morning and afternoon and then the whole day can also help. Just be flexible and do not make it a very strict and rigid game for them. You may want to tell them that if they reach 10 stickers then they can get that toy that they have been asking for.
Once you have controlled the daytime thumb or finger sucking you can work on the night time sucking. Putting on socks on their hands is a great idea, it serves as reminder not to suck. But again you need a cooperative child for this one, I’d say at least 4 years old.
Then there is the bitter tasting nail liquid. Some families have told me it really worked and some told me, oh the kid just got used to it and they don’t care about the taste any more. If you want to try it, there is this one from Amazon (Thum for Thumb Sucking). But again I think the trick is that you should get your child cooperating and interested in stopping. Punishing them or annoying them with a bitter taste would not alone, it should be done as helper or a reminder along with a reward system such as the sticker chart mentioned above.
If you, parents, have more ideas about this please drop in a reply to this post.
Firas