when and how do you stop thumb-sucking?

[Twiglett]

think the title says it all

how old is too old to be thumb-sucking

how do you stop them doing it?

DD is 2.8, sucks her thumb when she has her blankets .. used to be only at night but she's taken to bringing blanket downstairs now and tries to take it out with her too .. its 'noying me

[noonar]

my dentist said not to worry until they have their second teeth. dd1 had an open bite due to dummy use at that age, but stopped and her teeth corrected themselves within a year. dd 2 is the same age as your LO and she sucks her thumb too. we're not doing anything about it yet.

[Oati]

Mine both stopped when they were 4 - ds1 did it of his own accord, ds2 was nagged heavily as he was pushing his bottom teeth backwards

[Jelley]

No idea
Only going to make serious effort to stop when she wants to, or if/when dentist thinks it is causing a problem.

DD2 is 6 and still does it when tired (so does my best frien who is 36!)

[OttergavebirthonValentines]

i am 39 and sadly spend a good 50% of my day with mine in

[Oati]

interesting that you say that noonar, as it was my dentist who told us to stop ds2 from sucking his thumb.

[noonar]

oati, i guess its not ideal to start doing it in the first place. but as i've seen dd1's teeth correct themselves, am less worried with dd2.

[Jelley]

Our dentist gave dd2 a scary lecture (without talking to me first, but that's a seperate issue) which stopped her sucking her thumb during the day, but nothing helps when she is tired.

TBH, dd1 has buck teeth and has never done it, while dd2s are still fine so I'm not bothering about it yet.

[Winestein]

Am watching this with interest - DS sucks his first finger, which is fine, but it's twice the size of the rest of them

By the way Twig, I would like to say that your posts are well thought out and often stand out amongst the many, and you can see the compassion in simplicity far better sometimes. Just felt the need to say that without fuelling any fires

[Twiglett]

[salisshe]

I had a chronic thumb sucker and tried EVERYTHING. It used to drive me crazy cos I could see his teeth were starting to stick out. The problem was he did manage to stop in the day time but night time was a different story. I did the yukky tasting stuff, and socks, and sticker charts, and bribes (I mean incentives :P). I even went online and showed him what would happen to his teeth if he continued. Mean I know but I was desperate. Anyway, in my search online I found this ... www.thumbguard.com.au. It seemed kinda pricey but when I thought about how much I had already spent on stuff to try to stop it, not to mention the emotions both he and I had spent, and I was desperate. I figured it seemed the least traumatic so I just went ahead and bought it and OMG it worked! He only wore it at night cos day wasn?t a problem, and within a month he didn?t need or want to suck his thumb anymore. Even better I can see a difference in his teeth structure.

Now if only there was something I could buy to get rid of his other annoying habits :P

Good luck!

[PetitFilou1]

I stopped at 11 when the orthodontist said I couldn't have a brace unless I did. Before that, you would have had to cut it off to stop me. Dh still sucks his when he's tired. He's 33 - drives me mad.
Ds gave it up by himself when he noticed most of the other children at nursery weren't doing it (but now he twiddles his belly button instead) Dd is now sucking hers (and carries a cloth when she's tired) but I'm not worried. If it started affecting her teeth maybe I would be as I was teased because of mine. Got them all back later though when I got them fixed, got older etc