Advice on Thumb Sucking Toddler

My daughter never sucked her thumb until I took her bottle away.
My husband HATED her sucking her thumb. He called her a big baby, threatened to punish her...the more he harped at her, the more she sucked her thrumb. I told him to leave her alone and then, I made a deal with her, I was fine with her sucking her thumb, I told her she didn't have to stop, but no sucking her thumb in public, or even in the car. (I didn't always enforce the car rule especially if we were on load trips and it was obvious she was getting ready to fall asleep).
Telling her she didn't have to stop and telling her the places it was okay worked amazingly well. If she wanted to suck her thumb at night in bed, fine. If we were watching TV in the evenings, she would pull her blanket up over her head and I knew what she was doing under there, but didn't say anything. Before long, she was ONLY doing at night in bed and eventually not at all.

She had a big callus on her favorite thumb too. It did go away.
Another thing you might want to do, which I did and it worked for her....
once she was asleep, I gently took her thumb out of her mouth to give it a rest and air out. She very rarely put it back in after she was sound asleep.
A little reverse psychology might work with your child too....
maybe try taking the focus off of him stopping all together and tell him when it's okay. If he forgets and puts in his thumb in the car, you can say, "We don't suck our thumb in the car, remember? We'll be home in a bit and I know you can wait. That was our deal, right?"

It's worth a try. It worked WAY better than the yucky stuff and the threats and constant bickering by my husband about it.

Best wishes!

Your concerns are completely valid because they're medical in nature as opposed to just wanting him to stop because you don't like it. I'd ask your pediatrician about the wound not healing and the nail not growing - it maybe unrelated or may be directly because of the thumb sucking.

Our 4 year-old son is a thumb sucker. He only does it when he's tired and has really reduced the frequency over the past year considerably. Our pediatrician's advice was to let him wean naturally because most cessation methods aren't really effective (or they'll pick up another habit to replace it).

Good luck - I hope it heals soon!

My son started sucking his thumb at 2.5 years old. He has been doing it for 6 months. I have recently read that a lot of kids suck their thumbs/fingers even into older ages when they are concentrating. My son totally does this. I am not worried about it. They will wean themselves. I have even read that forcefully taking it away will cause more problems. He may need some extra soothing/sucking. Good luck!

Hi V., Well my step son did the same thing. It was a struggle to get him to understand the damage he was causing not only his poor little thumb but his teeth structure as well. There are guards you can buy to help this habit of your 3 yr olds. They slide over the thumb and then go around the wrist. Causing the suction to break each time he tries to suck his thumb. I'm not sure where to purchases them because his mom was the one who got them. I'm sure you can Google it! I do know they were about $40 bucks because my husband and I bought them. Just wanted to let you know there is something else out there other then finger nail polish remover! That never worked for us either.

I told my son to stop or I would put socks on his hands. When he did not stop I would put socks on his hands. He would cry that he hated the socks, but after only a couple of times of wearing the socks all he would need was a reminder to stop, and shortly after that he was done.

I understand where you are coming from, what worked for us is a lot of patience and continually tell him or help him put his hand down, and constantly monitoring him, even when asleep, every single time, we told him to put his hand down, not to suck on his thumb, and eventually he stopped, but it was a while, good luck.