How to Stop Your Child From Sucking Their Thumb

Thumb sucking is an acceptable behavior in babies and toddlers, but once a child reaches school-age and the habit continues many parents begin to worry. Oftentimes this embarrassing habit continues into the tween-age and teenage years, and can cause quite a bit of tension for the parent and the child alike. Read on to learn more about childhood thumb sucking.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Patience
• Understanding

1. If your child is sucking his/her thumb, he/she may suffer from anxiety, stress, insecurity or might just like how sucking a thumb feels. Although the situation may cause some social discomfort you may want to try a few simple tricks to help your child stop the habit.

2. Recognize the habit: When you are in public, try to approach your child in a non-confrontational manner and ask your child to refrain from the activity in public. Without scolding, let them know that in their own personal space it is ok, but in public it is a rude habit and is not allowed. This will get the child to think about actions in public and might help him/her stop altogether. Remember, this will not work the first time- you may need to remind your child several times before they start to change the habits.

3. If the subtle request is not working, other remedies have been tried by parents throughout the years. This can include putting substances such as lemon juice, hot sauce, a topical bad-tasting substance called 'thumb', or baking soda. As your child ages, he/she can just go and rinse off the medication or substance, so don't waste your time, money or frustrations with these techniques.

4. If your child is a young school-aged little person, you can try putting band-aids or cloth bandages on the thumbs during the day (what little kid doesn't ever get hurt and need a band-aid?)- this will not stand out as odd to most other children because most kids need a band-aid at one time or another, so the bandage will just look like another 'owie.' Try doing this at night as well- so your child does not feel the need to suck the thumb at night.

5. Act as a Scout: By being a scout, you can notice all of the things that trigger you child's desire to thumb-suck. Write down all instances of thumb-sucking that witness over a day or a week-long period, then make an effort to minimize the stressful instances that are causing the thumb-sucking to occur.

Tips & Warnings

• Your child will grow out of it- don't sweat the small stuff.
• Your child will stop sucking his/her thumb when he/she wants to- a good percentage of the time they have to have the desire to stop- not just be told or forced to stop the habit.
• Discuss any nervous habit with your child's pediatrician. They may have another idea or set of ideas that can help break the thumb-sucking vice.

[sandie2009]

on 3/26/2009 My daughter is only 4 yrs old and will be going to school next year .. so id like to get a head start and stop it early ... so ill try these steps and I hope they work. thank you very much for the advise!!

[Susanh]

on 12/30/2008 Good tips and advice. My oldest seems to have her fingers near or in her mouth a lot and we can't figure out why! I'm going to try your ideas. Thank you.

[jpwriter]

on 11/20/2008 Approaching the thumb sucking gently without scolding is very important. I sucked my thumb until I was 12. My parents tried all the tricks, but it would find it's way into my mouth while sleeping. I also remember friends children who sucked 2 fingers and they would quietly remove the fingers when the child was asleep.

[djvaughn2]

on 11/11/2008 This I was wondering myself. I can't seem to get my daughter from stopping this. She is 4 years old and still does this. thanks 5*

[StacyP]

on 11/11/2008 Nice advice! My oldest had a diehard thumb-sucking habit. I did step 2. It took a while, but it worked.