My little sweetE has a bad habit. He is a dedicated thumb sucker. We encouraged it as an infant. It was so much easier than a binky. It couldn't get lost, easy to retrieve, always there when you needed it. But the time has come to break him of this habit.
SweetP sucked his thumb too, but he gave it up at 10 months. I had no reason to believe that my sweetE wouldn't too. He didn't. His thumb and my hair are his comfort objects. In a perfect world, he is sucking his thumb and twirling my hair, all while being held by me. He is such a mommy's boy.
We have decided that now is the time for the thumb to cease to be a comfort object and commence being a usual part of his hand for playing, eating and being.
Ducky got a little too excited for sweetE's birthday, nearly 5 months away. He bought him a Bobba Fett costume. SweetE is obsessed with Bobba Fett. I knew there was no way we could wait that long to give it to him. And what if his Star Wars fascination slowed or stopped completely, as sweetP's has. Then he wouldn't care about the costume.
So we decided it was time to give up the thumb and the reward? One Bobba Fett costume.
If we see the thumb move toward the mouth, all we have to say is Bobba Fett and away it flies. We have completed day three. Today was the first day with three sticker success. He has a sticker chart that must be filled before he gets the costume. There are three stickers per day. At the end of two weeks, I figure the habit should be broken.
The timing works because there are no changes on the horizon. We have two months until the schedule will change.
Wish us luck as we work at helping the sweetE break his bad habit. Although I will admit he is pretty cute with that little thumb stuck in his mouth. But I know it won't be cute for much longer. My baby is growing up.
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7 comments:
My daughter sucked her thumb. The result was an open bite and $5,000 worth of orthodontia in her mouth for three years.
Break that bad habit!
Don't forget to check when he's in bed. That was our daughter's downfall. She sucked her thumb in her sleep.
Good luck.
Good luck with that. Buttercup sucked her thumb until she was 7 and we took her to the orthodontist and showed her this medieval torture device that would've been placed in her mouth, had she decided to continue. She NEVER sucked her thumb again!! We should've done it sooner.
Wow. Good job with the sticker chart and sticking to it. You've given me some ideas for a habit of Csilla's we're trying to break...
Thanks!
I guess I was lucky with the thumb suckers. Now nail biters...
It's bittersweet, isn't it, encouraging them to lose the baby habits? But you are doing the right thing. I sucked my thumb until I was around seven. My parents finally cracked it by using one of the nail-varnishes that make your thumb taste foul. Well, by that, and putting a cotton bag over my hand at night...
stickers and rewards sound like a good way to go.
my little brother used to suck his thumb--until he was 6, or 7. he'd fold his fingers together, like he was praying, and stick out one thumb and suck it.
he'd usually sit in the closet, or under a table.
clearly a comfort thing.
he didn't need orthdontia--i'm not convinced they're related--and he eventually outgrew it. but there were some pretty bad shouting matches until he did.
stickers and rewards, much better than shouting.
Thanks for all the encouragement. Day four is going well. He is starting to catch himself.
I used to suck my fingers until I was 6 or 7. I had to have braces, but I would have needed them anyway.
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