Any moms of Finger Suckers?

moped wrote: So Laila was born sucking her hand and then it turned into sucking her 2 middle fingers on either hand that is available. When she is upset or going to sleep etc. I never really cared until this weekend when my SIL (dental receptionist) was saying how HORRIBLE it is for her teeth and mouth and that I NEED to stop this. Well I ask, how do I do that? If I did anythign about it she would never sleep I am assuming. I felt bad after because she made such a big deal about it.

She does not suck her thumb, just her 2 middle fingers.

Any thoughts here?

cameragirl21 replied: I was a compulsive finger sucker, never my thumb, just my fingers. My parents tried everything--put really spicy, Russian style mustard on my fingers and I just licked it off and today I love really spicy mustard.
I have never had braces and have very straight, even teeth. I have no pics on this comp but I will try to find a pic as proof.
Your sister may be right in principle but there was never a bigger finger sucker than me and my teeth turned out great.
As for stopping her, there are creams out there that are safe but terrible tasting that people have used to break their kids of the habit. I've never tried them personally and obviously my parents' homemade version of it didn't work. But from what I've heard, those creams are supposed to be effective. But here's the thing--coming from a finger sucker, it's a major comfort thing...I never took a paci or a bottle but loved sucking on my fingers. If someone took them away from me I'd have had a hard time settling myself to sleep and just self soothing in principle. Just something to consider.

mckayleesmom replied: I wouldn't worry about it yet...she is still really little to try to stop a comfort habit in my opinion.

moped replied: How old were you when it stopped?

I have pics of L sucking her fingers - so cute! I would like to see you as a child too!

moped replied:
Thank you, I feel that way too...........

coasterqueen replied: Megan sucks her thumb, not fingers, and yes it is terribly screwing up her teeth. Of course she has forward tongue thrust movement, too, and that doesn't help the teeth either. As far as how to stop it...I wish I knew. I've tried everything!!!! I've tried bandaids, nasty tasting stuff, fingernail polish, etc and she just screams FOREVER until you take it off.

cameragirl21 replied:
LOL, to this day if I am really anxious about something, like if I'm working on pictures and working against a tight deadline, I will STILL catch myself chewing on my index finger, I'm serious.
I sucked on my fingers all through my early elementary years, in fact, my mom came to school for a little play we had for Mother's Day in second grade where we all had a minor speaking role and she said I had one finger in my mouth the whole time that I took out to speak and then stuffed right back in the second I stopped talking, lol.
So ultimately, I sucked on my fingers with my baby teeth and with my adult teeth, after my baby teeth fell out and my teeth turned out just fine...I was one of the only kids in my class who didn't need any braces or any sort of orthodontics.
I will try to find a pic of me smiling so you can see that my teeth turned out fine...every dentist I've been to said my teeth are excellent, one went as far as to say, "you have disgustingly good teeth" so I am living proof that it is not the end of the world.
As for pics of me as a kid, Idk if I have any, oh wait, yes I do, hold on, I'll have to take a pic of a pic, though and not the best quality, in Russia my parents weren't able to get much in color so it's a b/w....

My3LilMonkeys replied: I don't know about finger sucking, but Madison is a thumb sucker and has beautifully even teeth....she is almost 4 and now only suck her thumb when she's really tired.

moped replied:
See Karen, the thing is it NEVER bothered me or occured to me that I should make her stop, so I am not even sure if that is my question. I mean, should I be bothered by it? Should I make her stop? I am not sure. She is 16 months........until this weekend the thought never crossed my mind!

BAC'sMom replied: Ok here is my take as a Mom of a thumb sucker. I would not worry about it at this point if ever, she's young and can grow out of it. Ansley had been sucking her thumb since she was born. Well actually before that we once saw her sucking thumb in a ultrasound.
I have not done anything to stop it other than tell her she is a big girl now. I don’t believe in punishing, band aids, ace bandage, fingernail polish or shaming a child to stop. She has gotten much better as she has gotten older. She only does it at night when she has her blanket, that’s how she settles down. Yes it can screw up teeth. I guess it would depend on the position of the thumb/fingers and how much pressure is being put on the teeth. Ansley would/will have to have braces anyway so nothing new there.

Hope that helps honey, try not to worry to much right now.

HuskerMom replied: Summer is a thumb sucker. It never bothered me before because she's only 1 and her teeth are fine but the last month or so her thumb gets red and really sore looking. I would really like her to stop because of that but I don't know how. We tried the stuff from walmart called Thum, that didn't work. We tried tabasco, that didn't work, she seemed to like it. If you come up with something that works I'd love to know!

coasterqueen replied:
I don't think it would even cross my mind at that age. I didn't cross my mind until Megan was 3.5 and started pre-K.

I have not punished her with putting fingernail polish or bandaids on to try to get her to stop. I guess I should have elaborated more on what I meant. I did put bandaids on her thumbs once to see if that would curb her from doing it. She screamed and we took them off. The nail polish was just that, a normal polishing of her nails at a nail salon, like she likes, and they accidentally painted her thumbs and she freaked out when she tried to suck her thumb. So after trying to calm her down and it didn't work, we took it off. I have not tortured my child by trying these things. I know Megan will need braces, probably no matter what, but I've really tried to get her to not want that sucking motion because when she's not sucking her thumb she's forward tongue thrusting as well and I know how terrible it was for my husband as a child to have a "fork" put in and I really don't want to see Megan go through that as well. I figured if she stopped the need for sucking her thumb, maybe she's not feel the need to forward tongue thrust (which she does more in her sleep when not sucking her thumb). I'm only gently doing with her what I did with Kylie to get rid of the binky. With Kylie it was simple. When she was 2.5 years old I told her Santa needed her binkies for babies whose parents couldn't afford them. And they were gone. She was fine with it. It's a little harder when it comes to thumbs. Megan also uses her thumb as a source of calmness when she gets sensory overloaded and her therapist thinks there are other things we can show her to use for calming techniques than her thumb.

Kaitlin'smom replied: Kaitlin was a thumb sucker and it never bothere me, just bugged my mom she grew out of it, she stoped sucking it during the day when she went to pre K and then only sucked it at night and then eventually stoped that on her own. I had several people tell me to force her to stop but I went with my instinks and said she will stop on her own. she is still young give her time. I know what they say about the teeth but I really wonder how true it is, so far Kaitlin's teeth are just fine.

BAC'sMom replied: Karen you do realize that my reply had nothing to do with yours right? I have reread your reply 3 times and I am still not sure what the whole wink was about. It would seem to me by now that I would learn to not reply around here because it always gets misinterpreted. As you might have noticed then again maybe not, I did not quote you I merely mentioned some of the same things that you have tried in the past. I have heard all kinds of suggestions on how to stop the thumb sucking but I just selected a few to post. I mentioned punishing or shaming a child in reference to all the bazaar things that I have people suggest to me. I have been and always will have old school parenting. I don’t believe in all the hokey new age parenting. You or anyone else can use duct tape for all I care, then again scratch that duct tape is not organic so that one is out.

Joni, if you would like to try the ace bandage technique on Summer pm me and I will give you the details of how that technique works.

coasterqueen replied:
Honestly the winking wasn't anything negative. Yes, I felt a little bad that maybe you were referring to me, but I took it no farther than that and yes, to explain myself. But again, the winking wasn't anything negatively, honestly and I'm sorry if I upset you enough to say "You or anyone else can use duct tape for all I care, then again scratch that duct tape is not organic so that one is out." ETA: Btw, the first wink was just to say I should have explained myself further. The second wink, well not sure why I even have a wink there. I must have clicked the wrong smilie. Again, I'll take the last sentence you said to me and just ignore it, because I wasn't trying to be hurtful towards you to begin with.

5littleladies replied: I have lots of experience in this area having had 4 out of 5 sucking fingers or thumbs (one is Kate and I am still trying to get her to take a paci but seem to be losing the battle ). Brianna sucked her 2 middle fingers but stopped by age 3ish and seems to have decent teeth at this point. Megan also sucked her 2 middle fingers, but didn't stop until around 5 and will definitely be needing braces in the near future. Madeline sucked her thumb until age 7-we tried so many different things to get her to stop and nothing worked, then she broke her arm and that stopped it, lol! Anyways, Madeline had an open bite (basically an O shape in her front teeth) because of her thumbsucking which was so bad she couldn't bite food with her front teeth-she had to gnaw at things with her side teeth. She had to have extensive work (inluding braces) on her teeth starting at age 9 and will need braces again when she has all of her permanent teeth. It wasn't fun.

Anyways, I wouldn't worry too much at this point-it would probably be hard to get her to stop now anyways, but if she is still sucking at age 2 1/2-3 I would definitely start trying to get her to stop. There's a good chance that she would be fine, but on the off chance she is one of the unlucky ones like Maddie, it just isn't worth letting it go if there is anything you can do to stop it.

Angels R With Us replied: My daughter was sucking her fingers or foot in all of my 30 plus ultrasounds! I was advised to get her a soother as they are now made so teeth will come in normally.

When she was born and I would see her sucking her pointer finger or toes I popped in her soother.

I would rather see her with one than have to pay for all of the dental work my Nephew is going to need as his teeth came in so funny he has a lisp. All from sucking his thumb until he was 2.5 years old.

Now at 5 months, I am starting to ween it from her and all is going well.

Good luck, and keep in mind many childrens teeth do come in normal even if they are a finger sucker!