My daughter will be 18 months in a couple of weeks. She sucks her thumb and I started noticing that the skin on the thumb is getting very chapped and it looks like it is peeling. She sucks it when she is tired or when she is just relaxing basically for comfort. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
R.,
It's gonna be hard to try and stop a 18 months old, usually this behavior doesn't until after they are 3. They don't need the comfort as much and you can rationalize or negotiate with them. I used "Stop" by Mavala to help my daughter stop at 3. It worked! Good luck!
Buy this stuff called Kick The Habit. It's by Hoof hands(sounds gross) and it tastes horrible. It is for nail biting and thum sucking and it is almost impossible to stick your finger in your mouth, let slone, suck on it.
I believe they have stuff that you can put on her thumbs that doesn't taste good in the infant section at like walmart or kmart. If you want a natural remedy, get cloves of garlic cut them open and rub it on her thumbs, kids don't seem to like the taste of it.
My daughter, who will be 5 in July, just had another dental appointment this morning and thumb sucking was brought up by the dentist. My daughter has sucked her thumb since she was in utero, and does is mainly when she is going to sleep or self-soothing, so often she's not even aware that she's doing it. He suggested putting a glove on her hand at night, or an ace bandage on her elbow, which will remind her not to suck her thumb. If that doesn't work, at her next appointment, we'll discuss an appliance that goes in her mouth to prevent her from sucking her thumb. The dentist stressed that it was not punitive, but merely to get her to stop sucking her thumb.
Yup - just to confirm what you've heard, the nasty nail polish worked like a charm for my daughter. I didn't think it would, but boy was I wrong! :-)
