I know. It sounds awkward, but hear me out. As a parent currently paying for two sets of braces on children, encouraging your kids to stop them sucking or finger sucking early on can potentially make a huge difference in that orthodontic bill and length of treatment.
Help Your Child Quit a Sucking Habit
As a parent of young kids, you're excited when your child is finally able to self-soothe. What a wonderful feeling of freedom for you and empowerment for them that they have finally figured out how to comfort themselves when they’re feeling stressed, sad, tired, or uncomfortable
However, as time goes on, some kids will naturally just grow out of sucking their thumb or fingers at an appropriate age. If they don't, as time goes on and the child continues the habit, they may fail to develop other mechanisms of emotional coping.
Thumb sucking can also lead to negative physical and social consequences. Thumb sucking is a bad habit for many reasons. Here are a few ways to help your child stop a sucking habit.
Why You Should Encourage Your Child to Stop Thumb Sucking
In addition to the emotional development issues that may arise from thumb sucking, there are also physical and social consequences of thumb sucking. Every child is different. Thumb sucking can make it quite difficult for them to cope and create new forms of comforting themselves.
Thumb sucking can lead to negative addictive habits
It may also result in the formation of other negative habits in the future. Some psychologists suggest that thumb sucking is the first addiction and can be an early sign of later addictive behaviors. However, the problems surrounding development are just one challenge.
Thumb sucking can lead to physical issues such as malocclusion
There are also physical repercussions from thumb sucking into early childhood. When your child sucks their thumbs for a prolonged period, it can cause malocclusion of the teeth. This is when the teeth are misaligned when the mouth is closed.
Malocclusion results in an open bite, which is when both rows of teeth are directed outward, or an overbite. An overbite is when the upper teeth are misaligned and the top teeth sit over the bottom teeth. Teeth malocclusion can require professional orthodontic treatment. While your child may require orthodontic treatment anyway, any malocclusion they may have had can be significantly increased by thumb sucking or finger sucking—I say this speaking from experience. That additional malocclusion means the orthodontic treatment will likely last longer, meaning it will also cost you more money in the end. Enough money you'll choke a little.
Thumb sucking can lead to skin problems
Thumb sucking can also create skin problems. Your child's fingers or thumb may become irritated from being wet for extended periods of time. This can cause irritation, rashes, peeling, and callusing. It can also cause cracking and bleeding, especially in the winter or in a dryer climate, which makes the skin vulnerable to infections. Thumb sucking may warp the thumbnail or cause ingrowth. It is important to avoid these complications that arise from thumb sucking by stopping the habit early.
Thumb sucking can cause speech issues
Speech issues from sucking thumbs or fingers is another problem that can arise, and it's also one we've had personal experience with. Since thumb sucking affects the jaw, mouth, and palette, the habit can lead to difficulty pronouncing certain sounds. You can imagine if sucking the thumb can affect that, sucking two fingers can create even more shifting. Our daughter with significant malocclusion issues was born with a very narrow palette, but also sucked on two fingers for what seemed like forever. She spent several years during elementary school in speech therapy.
Thumb sucking may lead to developing a lisp, and it may also lead to social consequences. The other kids may ridicule your child for sucking their thumbs. They may have difficulty expressing themselves and communicating.
Ways to Stop Thumb Sucking
If you're looking for ways to help dissuade your child from sucking their thumb, there are lots of products on the market to try. Some work better than others, and some work better for some people than others.
One thing we tried was the liquid that you put on the thumb/fingers that tastes bitter. You apply it and when they try to suck on their thumb/fingers, it tastes icky and they stop. It didn't work for me as a kid, and it didn't work for my daughter. But I know people who have used it and had good luck.
The personal favorite that I wish had been around ages ago, is this thumb sucking glove, which is a cloth product that wraps around the wrist of your child and covers their thumb (they have a fingersucking version, too). It discourages them from sucking their thumb/fingers because they won’t enjoy it as much as they would with access to them. Who wants to suck on cloth?
One day my daughter finally just stopped sucking her fingers; I think she finally realized that she didn't want braces and the dentist kept bringing home that point at every visit. But before that, we tried everything we could think of:
- T-Guard Fingersucking guard: Sort of like the fingersucking glove, which covers the pointer and index fingers, but it's hard plastic (they make a thumb version, as well)
- Aerofinger guard: Similar to the guard I described above, but a less rigid plastic (they make a thumb version, as well)
- Mittens and socks: Both worn regularly to keep her hands protected and also attempted to tape them around the cuff area to keep her from pulling them off in the middle of the night
- Athletic tape: taping her two fingers together
The last option if none of these tools work (especially if you've been working with your pediatrician or family doctor along the way), is a psychologist. Not only will a professional have the ability to tell you if your child has a developmental concern, but they’ll also be able to determine if thumb sucking/ finger sucking is a symptom of another problem. The professional can also give you tips on how to get them to stop if none of the above methods work. It may seem harmless, but it is important to get this behavior stopped earlier rather than later.
Do you have a child who was a thumb sucker/finger sucker? What worked for you?
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