My Daughter (3 and a half) has had a security blanket (Mimi) since she was 1 and started at nursery for half a day a week - the staff asked me to provide a transitional object, and since then it has gone with her pretty much everywhere. She has also always been a thumb sucker, pretty much since birth. When she was 3 hours old, she was sucking her fist like mad.
It seems that the two have become connected, that she sucks her thumb when she has Mimi. I took her to the dentist last week, specifically asked her about her front two teeth which are 'over- jetting' ie the top two teeth as sticking out. Asked the dentist on a scale of 1-10 what the scale of her overjet was, she said 4 or 5 and that at 9 it starts to become a real problem.
I have since had a couple of conversations with DD about stopping thumb sucking. I've never done reward charts before, and have just successfully used a tiny one to help her to stop coming into our room at night (she was doing so 4 times a night just to be tucked up again, and with a DS who was also waking twice, I was exhausted...) Anyway, when I suggested a reward chart for stopping sucking thumb, she said if I did that then she would be nasty to her brother. So quickly stopped that tack.
She mostly sucks in the car, when she's falling asleep, when she's tired, or watching a DVD, listening to a story or at night when she's falling asleep and sometimes in sleep. I approximate about 30 mins-1 hour a day. It's by no means all the time.
I think the key to this may be to begin to restrict taking Mimi out and about, or her use at home. So, for example, not taking her to nursery or pre-school (she starts big school Sept 2011, and I wouldn't want her to take the blanket there, because she's get lost instantly!) so I need to wean her off it for pre-school/nursery anyway soon.
My instinct is to back off totally on the thumb sucking front, and not draw any attention to it. (She understands at a very basic level that it's bad for her teeth, and I'm concerned she's going to get a complex about them). Instead, to focus on leaving Mimi at home for nursery and pre-school and see how that goes.
Do any of you have any pearls of wisdom on broaching this one? Thanks in advance.
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Behaviour/development
Weaning from Security Blanket/Thumb Sucking - sorry long post
7 replies
Jools78 · 02/12/2010 21:16
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