My 22 month old son has sucked his thumb since his early months. This winter, being the active toddler that he is, his thumb is so very chapped and cracking to the point of raw open skin. What solutions do I have? I am not opposed to weaning, if he can do it.
Hi there, so I didn't try to wean, I just tried to stop the cracking and the Lansinoh was perfect!! He even asked for it after a while.
So I still have a thumbsucker, but it is just wet and not sore any more.
Thank you.
My son has the same issue. We use a 0.5% hydrocortisone on when he wakes up and is not apt to suck. It seems to clear it up or at least not make it as angry looking.
To get my son to stop we put socks on his hands when ever we caught him doing it. I know it sounds weird, but it really worked.
I would also suggest the bad tasting polish. You can order Mavala on Amazon.com.
yeah this can be a hard habit to break. He is young still but if his thumb is that bad then it may be time to try and get him to stop. I worked for an orthodontist so we saw lots of kids who needed to stop thumb sucking. These are the things we told them to try: Try wrapping the thumb with tissue and medical tape or bandages so that it's too big for him to suck on. Or tape socks to his hands at night while he sleeps so he can't suck. Again he is pretty young so I don't know if these ideas would work for him but you could try.
My daughter is a 5YO thumb sucker. I remind her every time I cant her, but she does it repeatedly in the evenings when she is tired. I see a lot of comments to tape the thumb with tissue and such, however be careful. http://www.wfaa.com/news/health/Rare-Toe-to-Hand-Transpla...
I would see if you could find a thumb/finger brace and use that instead. My daughter would just remove it.
That was my son last winter. We did aquaphor and band-aids. If you tell him he has an owie and put the band-aid on, you can then tell him to not suck his thumb while that is on. It didn't work for weaning my son, he went back to it after it was healed. I wasn't focused on stopping him, but it would have been a nice benefit.
What did finally get my son to stop was when he whacked his face on a shelf at daycare, the bleeding, doctor, dentist - AAAHHH!! Anyway, after that ordeal he asked if he could suck his thumb (we would sometimes tell him not to if we were at a store with no cart cover, so he learned to ask). We asked if it hurt his teeth. He said yes, so we said that he had better not. He never asked again!! Horrible way, I know, but there is the silver lining. Oh, and he was about 28-29 months at the time.
Do the nail polish stuff... I seen someone said something about a bandaid. Please I strongly suggest against that my friend chose that to stop her 15 month old daughter and the lil girl forgot it was there and choked and inevitably passed away from that. There is a law thats trying to be passed to not have dr offices even use band aids after shots for kids under two. Because in the car they could pull it off and try to eat it. Sorry for getting off the subject, but i would personally use the nail polish
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Do the nail polish stuff... I seen someone said something about a bandaid. Please I strongly suggest against that my friend chose that to stop her 15 month old daughter and the lil girl forgot it was there and choked and inevitably passed away from that. There is a law thats trying to be passed to not have dr offices even use band aids after shots for kids under two. Because in the car they could pull it off and try to eat it. Sorry for getting off the subject, but i would personally use the nail polish
Our pediatric dentist sells the terrible tasting nailpolish and after reminding my four year old over and over and OVER to take the thumb out of her mouth and trying bandaids, lotions, socks, you name it... we tried the polish. We had one hard night where she couldn't remember to keep it out of her mouth and it tasted horrid, and then she never did it again. My husband and I were shocked! If we knew it worked so well we would have done it earlier. The polish was about $20 and we bought it at the dentist. He said it's more expensive than the over the counter stuff at the grocery store but it stays on the thumb a lot longer. It was well worth the $20!!
You have gotten plenty of answers about how to stop it (which none of that works). As the mom of 2 thumb suckers since the womb- now ages 9 and almost 5- yes, they still do it. There is NOTHING you can do to stop it, I have tried all the tricks, gadgets etc. He will stop when he is ready and that is it! My pedi dentist was a thumb sucker til age 9 and she says the same- it wont work until they are ready.
As for the wear and tear on his thumb. If he has cracks you can put some neosporin on it during his busy times- when he does not want to suck. Also, bag balm is WONDERFUL for this- This is all I use on my girls. If you are not familiar with it- google it and you can usually find it at wal greens- maybe wal mart. Good luck.
