How to Stop Finger Sucking 5 Yr Old???

I sucked my finger until I had braces with head gear. There was no more room in my mouth for a finger. I was probably a young teenager. I only sucked my finger to fall asleep at night, but it was definitely a hard habit to break.

Try to replace it with a different, less undesirable behavior---like chewing sugarfree gum.

First the bad news: It is almost impossible to break a habbit of any kind. The good news is, you can replace the habbit. You can't talk her out of sucking her fingers, because it is not an issue of logic. Figure out what triggers her to suck her fingers. Does she do it to help her sleep, when she's nervous, when she's bored? Then, help her figure out a replacement habbit that she can do any time. It would help if this replacement habbit also keeps her fingers busy. Then, get everyone that cares for your daughter on board with the replacement habbit. Gently (and privately) remind her when she sucks her fingers.

There are products that you can paint on her nails like finger polish, but it tastes nasty, so it may discourage the finger sucking. My son always sucked the middle two fingers of his left hand. He got a dental appliance in preparation for braces, and that ended the finger sucking in a hurry--he said "It's not the same," in a rather frustrated voice.

That's a tough one. I would try a reward system and to help her get her reward, instead of hot sauce I would try bandaids. They are yucky and she's old enough where she won't accidentally eat them. Of course this will only work if you get her on your side of at least trying since she will just pull off the bandaids otherwise. I wish you much luck!

Dear M.,
My daughter was a thumb sucker.
She never used a pacifier until I took her bottle away and she never sucked her thumb until I took the pacifier away. It was all just a form of comfort for her.
My husband HATED her sucking her thumb and threatened all kinds of punishments and yucky substances...which only made her suck her thumb more.
I made a deal with her.
It was her thumb and there was really nothing I could do to take her thumb away from her, but if she wanted to suck her thumb, she could do it in private. Not going down the road in the car, not sitting in the chair in the living room, it was a personal thing and she needed to keep it that way. If we rented movies or something and she pulled her blanet up over her head, I knew exactly what she was doing, but she was keeping it private and next thing you knew, she was sound asleep.
She outgrew it.
She was never any trouble, she slept and ate well, she was a bright and spirited child. She sucked her thumb to comfort herself. I never told her she couldn't suck her thumb, but there were limits as to where she could do it and little by little she just gave it up on her own.
But seriously, nagging less about it really worked for her.
Your daughter will be fine.
Some kids are hair twirlers, some suck their thumbs.
Tell her she can do it, but only in private. As she gets older, she won't want her friends knowing and it will phase out.

Best of luck!

As with most ingrained habits you will likely find that the more you talk to her, the more she will hold on to the habit. Have you tried having her dentist talk with her? Having a professional give her the facts about what this is doing to her teeth may help. Also, she will be starting school soon, and she is going to find she is teased a lot by other children if she's doing this in school. It might help to gently mention this to her. Maybe just a gentle hug while you explain that you want her to have a good time in school and sucking her fingers might get her teased and she'd be unhappy and uncomfortable if that happened. You probably will have to be careful that she doesn't decide she'd rather have the fingers to suck than to go to school.

I do think you need to back off of the constant telling her, and/or pulling her fingers from her mouth. I know it's hard to just sit back and watch a habit like this go on, but I think you might find it subsides more quickly by you backing off. Maybe just have a quiet, reaonable conversation with her about all the pros and cons, then tell her you are going to leave it up to her, because she's a big girl and can make her own decisions on when to quit (and the truth is, she's only going to quit when she decides to anyway). Then tell her you are not going to talk to her any more about it. Then just bite your lip, keep quiet, and ignore it. I don't for a minute think that will be an easy thing for you to do. I also think that you likely get stares and comments from other adults when they see her with her fingers in her mouth, and that's not easy to deal with, but you need to simply tell them what your approach is, and let them think what they will. If another adult is rude enough to approach her and say something about it, you might just say, 'we are working on that habit' and leave it at that.

We have a similar situation with our 3 1/2 year old though she seems to be stopping now. I am not sure if what we did worked or if she is just growing out of it.

One thing we tried was to take away her bear when she sucked on her fingers because "he was making her suck fingers" when she'd cuddle with it. Then I tried having her hold her bear with her sucking fingers and told her to have him help her keep her fingers out of her mouth.

I also showed her pictures of teeth that needed braces and teeth with braces. I told her I wanted her to stop because I cared about her and didn't want her to need braces. Afterwards, when she'd pretend she was the mommy and I was her baby, I'd pretend to suck my fingers and she'd tell me to stop because she loved me and didn't want me to have bad teeth.

The other thing was to get princess gloves (found some at Walmart) and to have her wear them at night if necessary. You can't suck your fingers with gloves on! By the time I found the gloves she'd already started weaning herself.

She seems very proud of herself when I tell her that I checked on her after she fell asleep and she wasn't sucking on them. I've even heard her proudly tell her brother that she didn't suck on her fingers or that her bear helped her.

I know your daughter is older, but hopefully something I mentioned will help? Our dentist recommended the princess gloves, so maybe you can ask your dentist for suggestions. Unfortunately I am not sure there is anything you can do if she doesn't want to stop, so perhaps you need to work on getting her to want to stop first.
Best of luck,
C.

Hello, I am a mother to a 7 year old daughter who sucked her thumb and I too sucked my thumb until about 11 or so. (no kidding but just at night) My parents tried everything with me. Luckily my teeth weren't bad but I wanted braces and the dentist told me that he wouldn't even put them on until I stopped. So I put band aids on my thumbs and tried so hard to fall asleep. I finally learned to deal with out it. My daughter on the other hand would try from time to time as I so did not want her to have the habit. I made it fun for her. I told her that I did not want people to call her names and that I would reward her if she tried. It worked sometimes, well she got really sick (which happened a lot with the germs) and got a fever blister on her lip well she sucked her thumb and then a fever blistered formed on her thumb and hurt pretty bad. She was unable to suck it at that point and had to stop, now unfortunately you can not form a big blister however you can try making it fun. Talk to her tell her about her teeth sticking out like a rabbit and having to have braces and then explain that people will make fun. Reward her for trying. Get her to want to stop put band aids or even try stickers...Good luck.

I hate to say it, but the more you pay attention to it, the longer it will last. I was a thumb sucker, and my parents did the same thing, special yucky tasting medicine, tying cloth over my hands, punishment, shaming, etc. At 5 I was smart enough to go and wash the stuff off, and wriggle my hands out of the tied on cloth. A lot of this happened at 5. I stopped sucking my thumb at 7, on my own, with no threats or other "encouragement," after my parents totally gave up trying to force me to stop.

Dr. Brazelton talks about this in his book "Touchpoints," which I found really helpful in understanding phases that kids go through. He is of the opinion that by calling attention to the "problem," you only make sure that it will continue.

Kids get colds all the time, they just do. Did anyone in your family have braces? I ended up with braces, which my parents blamed on my thumbsucking. Then all three of my non-thumb-sucking siblings had to get them, so there goes that theory. Yes, ideally she wouldn't suck her thumb.

I too was really defiant about this. It's only recently that I realized why, as it's such a "reasonable" thing for a parent to try to impart. My own feeling is that it feels like someone else is trying to control your body when someone else tells you to stop doing something like this. Of course at 5 you don't articulate this to yourself, it's just a vague feeling of "no way!"

I know you want the best for your daughter, and want nothing but the best for her. Try to let it go for a bit and see what happens.

Hope this helps a bit, hugs.

Thumb guards! Here's the website - http://www.thumbguard.com/

Our pediatrician recommended them and they were amazing with my daughter when she was 4. They are little plastic (washable)things you slip over your daughter's thumbs (or fingers) and they are attached by the those plastic bracelets you get at amusement parks. You get 30 days worth of bracelets that you change the bracelet each day when you take the device off for washing. My daughter loved getting to pick the bracelet color each day. Basically, the device breaks the vacuum seal that is created in thumb sucking and makes it less enjoyable so it breaks the habit. The child can still put her thumb in her mouth, but it's just not as fun. The company also has a money back guarantee. My daughter stopped in about 14 days, but kept wearing them for about 20 days because of the bracelets and has never gone back to thumb sucking.

Good luck!

hi M.,
my son now 9 was a thumbsucker since he was a baby. I talked to his dentist and he lent me a book called David decides and I made him a reward chart. the book talks about a little boy who made the choice to stop sucking his finger/ thumb and goes through a story. the reward cart I made was a month long calendar. I gave him a sticker for each day we went without sucking his thumb and at the end of the week I gave him a prize. if he made it to the end of the whole month he got a bigger prize of his choice. of course he had to a few mishaps but that is to be expected when learning to break a habit. that worked like a charm for us. he has been thumb free for 3 years.

good luck

S.