Is Your Baby Thumb-Sucking?

My baby started thumb-sucking when he was just a few months old and I immediately raised the concern to his Neonatalist. He was not at all bothered by it. He simply said that it was the baby's way of pacifying himself or managing his discomfort if he was a little hungry or sleepy without immediately resorting to crying. His thumb-sucking gives a certain signal to his caretakers that he was in need of something. I was told that, eventually, he was going to outgrow the habit.

Well, he's more than a year and a half now and he's still sucking his thumb. He has developed a big callous just below the thumbnail that is already slightly odd-shaped. We tried getting him a pacifier that had the same shape as a baby's thumb but it was already too late. He liked biting the silicone pacifier for a while but he still went back to his beloved thumb.

When we were told by an expert that he was going to outgrow it, obviously we didn't attempt to break him off the habit. We even found it adorable and cute whenever he did! He was able to get positive reinforcement for doing it so he has become persistent. He sucks his thumb even while he sleeps and gets upset when we try to take it out!

So, the moral of the story: stop the habit while you can. Stop it before his teeth gets out of line, before his thumb becomes red, sore, and reshaped. Keep his hands busy with a rattle or anything that responds with sound or movement whenever held or touched. Put those expensive interactive toys into use! Just make sure that when you try to stop his sucking you give him something else to do which is equally or even more exciting.

Our baby experts are very helpful and we can learn a lot from them, but sometimes we need to turn our mommy-radars on and determine what is best under the circumstances.