How do you explain about other children thumb sucking and sucking fingers etc?

[MaddingCrowd]

DS has never been a thumb sucker but now he is seeing other children sucking their fingers at nursery and asking about it. I personally discourage him from having fingers in his both as I think it's quite disgusting (not judging others who do t for security but that's not why my DS is doing it). So I just say yuck take your fingers out of your mouth. But he's telling other children to stop doing it and telling them it's yucky. One parent was really unimpressed the other day when he went up to a friend who was obviously feeling a bit insecure and had all his fingers in his mouth and DS told him it was a yucky thing to do.

I guess it's a common problem telling your DC not to do something that others seem to be allowed to do.

How do you handle it?

[ppeatfruit]

Sorry but just because you think he's not doing for comfort, doesn't mean he isn't does it? If he's fairly new at nursery he may well feel the need for comfort. Speaking as an ex CM\nanny and M of 3 plus E.Y teacher; I'd ignore it, the more a carer fusses and or forbids something the more the dcs do it IME.

[MaddingCrowd]

Oh I'm pretty sure. He doesn't do it at nursery (and not new to nursery) he does it at home saying 'x friend does this' then puts his fingers in his mouth. He's looking for comment from me IYSWIM and I'd rather casually discourage so it doesn't become a habit. None of my other 3 have been finger suckers and we have a baby (and constant colds) so I'd rather hands stay out of mouths. I'm very casual when it comes to 'germs' but in the throws of a cold I'd rather fingers not go from mouth to toy and then toy into the baby's mouth.

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Ds (4) tells other children off for doing things we have told him not to do I can't exactly stop him from telling them so I suppose he has to figure out the social interactions for himself.

Most commonly it's things like "don't climb on that" or "don't walk on the grass". I explain that I'm not x child's mummy so I can't tell them what to do but the sign DOES say keep off the grass so you have to do as you are told

[ppeatfruit]

The whole world is made of good and bad bacteria ,including us, we wouldn't have survived as a species if every one of our fingers could kill us make us ill would we?

[MaddingCrowd]

Oh god of course you're going to paint me as some germaphobe. It's really not unreasonable to not want fingers in mouths all the time. I've got four children and guarantee I am ten times less fussed about hygiene than anyone else I know. I'm not some kind of hand sanitiser enthusiast I have just found that because there are quite a few of us we pass colds back and forth and the best way of stopping us permanently having them is to minimise the amount the DC lick each other.

[ppeatfruit]

The best way to stop getting colds is to not have dairy foods IME. Our GD was the only one in her nursery to not have colds ALL the time, it wasn't because she washed her hands all the time it was because she didn't like or drink the free milk.

[ppeatfruit]

Sorry too many 'alls'

[MaddingCrowd]

We have v little dairy. I am v much in agreement on that. I can't believe the nursery menus. Cheese for lunch, yoghurt for pudding then a milk on the way home. And most children will have had milk and cereal at breakfast. This country has an obsession with getting dairy into children for some reason.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

I painted my Dds nails with that stop and grow. She never used to suck her thumb then she started playing with a kid who did so she started

so i painted them as she was becoming antisocial with it and it looks horrible and I couldn't understand a bloody word she was saying.

It's great stuff. try it

[Ineedacleaningfairy]

We made the mistake of telling our toddler that dummies are for babies (our baby has one... Ds was constantly putting it in his mouth so we told him it was for the baby only) now he tells his friends at nursery they are babies if they have a dummy, he also says any child is a baby if it's in a pushchair, even if they are 3, he points and shouts BABY!! He has developed this himself, we just say no that's a little girl/boy they are as big as you/older than you. My ds still breastfeeds and he's been on the receiving end of some breastfeeding is for babies comments (and from adults as well as children, adults should know better!) he's not bothered really, he just says "and little boys!"

[ppeatfruit]

That's true about dairy madding I reckon too much non organic dairy has something to do with early breast development.

Buy him his own dummy Ineeda it's not worth making a fuss over, like the thumb sucking thing.

[MaddingCrowd]

The point is though that it's not a fuss. He just does it once every few weeks and asks me why x friend does it. If he was a thumb sucker I'd be fine with it but he's not.

[LittleLionMansMummy]

Does he have any kind of comfort object? Ds has a rather disgusting habit of sucking his teddies' labels so when he's asked about his friends sucking fingers or thumbs i explain that it helps calm/ relax them and makes them happy like his teddies do. He was happy with that explanation.