Stopping Finger Sucking!

As a fingersucker myself I worry about my daughter who sucks her thumb not being able to stop I sucked my finger forever and I even sucked them through braces and afterwards I fear she will do this too but when she was a newborn I was grateful when she found her own finger to soothe her back to sleep instead of me getting up to put the passifier back in her mouth but everything I have read on the subject says not to worry until the reach the age of five or so because it should gradually fade out by then.

My 4yo still sucks "finger". I have not tried to stop it though. The dentist did not have a problem with it and now he only does it when he is tired. I think that if it was life threatening I would stop it, but it seems as if she is soothing herself by sucking her finger. I have let my son wean himself and I think I will be a little sad when he stops... that will be the end of him being a baby.

This is a hard habit to break. Trust me I think I sucked my thumb until I was like 10 or 12. MY parents tried everything to get me to stop they tried bribing me, offering me rewards. They even threatened to tape my fingers together. lol. None of my kids were thumb suckers or hooked on the pacifier. So I didn't have to deal with it. It's hard when they suck on their fingers because you can't take them away. How old is she? If she's still a baby or a toddler she should grow out of it soon. But if she's older like I was, then you should really try to get her to stop. I don't really have any advice, since none of it worked on me. One day I just stopped. Good Luck!

My little sister used to suck her thumb, she only sucked the right one, and mom tryed everything to get her to stop. im not recommending you do this, but the way she finally stopped was when she got her thumb smashed in a door, her thumb was so sore for a week, that she couldnt suck on it. However, my cousin also did the sucking thing and her mom found some "nailpolish" which was made for this purpose, it tasted aweful, like chemicals, and no matter how many times she tryed to suck on it, it tasted so bad she finally stopped. good luck hope this was helpful.

W.,

There really isn't any problem with them doing that. It won't make them bucktoothed, or cause palet problems, or anything like that. My daughter sucked her thumb in utero...lol. She did up until she was about 5, when coincidently, she started school. I think that halted THAT right in it's tracks.

Why do you want her to stop so badly?

As far as it affecting the teeth and palate, I think sometimes it will and sometimes it won't--you need to check with a dentist to see if the sucking is affecting her mouth. My son is 4.5 and his finger sucking has caused major damage to his mouth and palate--his upper and lower jaws are already growing differently and his teeth don't fit together properly. We're guaranteed needing braces and possibly major surgery to reshape his mouth. He also developed a chronic fungal infection in his fingernails and they are very disfigured as a result. I know some kids seem to suck for years without any major ill effects, but for some kids it's a real problem. As far as suggestions, I don't have any that haven't been mentioned already. My son does seem to be gradually outgrowing it, but the damage has already been done, and we've had several dentists and an orthodontist who all agree on what we need to do next (we just have to decide when we want to tackle this, they suggest around age 6, and hopefully the sucking will have stopped by then). If we could have known what we would face now, back when he was a baby, we would have made more of an effort to stop it (of course everything we read said it wouldn't affect the teeth, that it was ok, kids will outgrow it and not to stress about it).

All I can say is stop it now. The older they get the harder it is to get them to stop. I sucked my fingers until I was about 14 and had to have the roof of my mouth reshaped as a result, just so my teeth would make the correct contact to chew. There are many things you can do. First, try to get her to wear gloves or mittens....as winter is coming you could get her her favorite character or something on her gloves. This way, they don't like to chew/suck on the gloves. Another one is to try a reward system. If she goes 15 minutes without being reminded, she gets a sticker....expand time as she catches on etc. Another one is to get get Nail Biter by Sally Hansen and put it on her nail of that finger. The stuff is only dangerous if she were to drink about 5 gallons and that is if you could put that much on her nail and she actually managed to eat it. That stuff tastes horribly, even to the touch, though it smells like bananas. That was the only thing that could break my habit, though you may want to try the others first. Hope that helps.

My son would suck on his fingers too. My husband used a Finding Nemo line with a twist, "Fingers are friends not food".
After a week of saying this to him, he stopped.