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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think nursery worker should not tell my daughter not to suck her thumb?

127 replies

chaosisawayoflife · 31/05/2012 16:22

Genuine aibu.
Dd is 3 and is a big thumb sucker. She has been since age was in the womb and it gives her a lot of comfort. I have never told her not to or tried to discourage her.
I picked her up from nursery today and she said 'I'm not allowed to suck my thumb, am i?'. I asked why she said that and she told me that one of the nursery workers had told her off for sucking her thumb.
Now, I would understand it was interfering with her trying to say or do anything but it never does. She only really sucks it when she is having a quiet few minutes or if she is nervous, tired or concentrating on a story or something.
I'm a bit cross about this as her thumb is her security, her comfort and an instinctive, reflex action but I genuinely don't know if aibu to feel this way and whether I should say something.

OP posts:

Hulababy · 31/05/2012 16:24

Without knowing the context it is hard to say tbh. Maybe they had been doing craft and your DD hadn't washed her hands, or they'd been outside and getting dirty, etc.

iliketea · 31/05/2012 16:26

Do you have the full story here?

I can imagine that a nursery worker maybe tells your daughter not to suck her thumb when she is talking because it means she can't be understood rather than just telling her off everytime she is seen sucking her thumb.

You could bring it up at the nursery to try and ascertain what actually happened. You say it never interferes with speach etc, but you only know that outside nursery, maybe she sucks her thumb a lot more at nursery and needs to be reminded not to e.g when she's speaking / has been doing something which makes her hands dirty (like in the garden) - I imagine to a 3 year old that would very much sound like being told off, rather than stopping her eating dirt or making sure she was understood.

PandaWatch · 31/05/2012 16:27

It is unhygienic and could cause problems with her teeth if she does it a lot so I think at some point it may be an idea to start to discourage it but I don't see the harm when she's still so small and I wouldn't say it's the nursery's place to tell her off about it. I'm sure I was still sucking my thumb at that age and I am not buck-toothed!

RandomNumbers · 31/05/2012 16:28

I think that she was prob asked to unplug to speak

I don't think she's too young to be gently nudged towards unplugging to do stuff

Of course you don't know exactly what the staff member said, why not go and ask

LimeLeafLizard · 31/05/2012 16:28

Some people are really anti thumb sucking, though I haven't figured out why. My middle child is the same age and a thumb sucker, in similar circumstances as you describe. I'd be mildly annoyed as you are if this comfort was taken away.

Ask the nursery perhaps - maybe there were particular reasons why she was told not to suck her thumb - e.g. they couldn't hear her answer a question.

Meglet · 31/05/2012 16:28

Yanbu. As long as she wasn't doing it during something like messy play then they should just leave her to it.

I'm on the other side. 5yo DS is a constant thumb sucker and nursery where very good at trying to discourage him but I've discovered that school don't stop him or mention it. He needs to stop and I feel like I'm losing a battle!

GrahamTribe · 31/05/2012 16:31

My immediate reaction was to say YANBU! Pull the damn staff on it! Then I realised that you'd better find out what was actually said and why first. If there was a good reason - dirty hands, DD sucking thumb when talking, just washed hands in order to eat etc then fine. If not, then pull the damn staff on it!

OddBoots · 31/05/2012 16:31

There's nothing (much) wrong with thumb sucking at home but in an environment were they are sharing toys etc with other non-family children it's good hygiene to have the child wash their hands between thumb sucking (or nose picking or scratching about in their pants) and picking up shared things.

This isn't really very practical so I could understand a nursery discouraging all those things.

JamieandTheOlympicTorch · 31/05/2012 16:34

I'm not against thumb-sucking per se, but if a child hooks their thumb behind the front teeth and sucks hard, they could end up very goofy, as I did. It made me feel very ugly until I got a brace, age 10.

As for the OP, I agree with those above who say - find out the context.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 31/05/2012 16:39

YABU. Her hands could have been dirty, or she could have been difficult to understand, or she could do it regularly and it's not very nice for the other children and staff to have to touch things that have just been touched by a soggy thumb. The staff probably want to be able to hold her hand or help her with things without getting covered in wet from where her thumb has just come out of her mouth. I work with small children, i would be making her wash her hands before she held my hand if she had just been sucking her thumb.

You should be discouraging it IMO, because apart from it being unhygienic, it is extremely bad for her teeth. I know a 5yo who sucks her thumb a lot, and you can actually see how it has changed the shape of her face.

In a three year old it's not too bad, but if you don't discourage it now, she will end up being a 5/6/7 year old that does it, which I think is horrible to see.

juneybean · 31/05/2012 16:47

As a nanny, I won't listen to a child if they talk to me with their thumb/finger in their mouth and I don't allow my 4 year old DC to suck her finger during the day, it's unnecessary.

I have nothing against thumb sucking, but I've seen children speaking with a lisp due to being allowed to have dummies/thumbs during the day.

Hammy02 · 31/05/2012 16:47

YABU. If I were you I'd be doing everything I could to get her to stop sucking her thumb. I had to wear a brace to get my teeth back to where they should be - they'd been pushed forward due to thumb sucking when I was very young. I wish my parents had stopped me as wearing a brace is obviously uncomfortable & should be avoided if at all possible.

JamieandTheOlympicTorch · 31/05/2012 16:52

I doesn't just make the teeth goofy, it can actually change the shape of the jaw

more · 31/05/2012 16:53

nothing my parents could do to make me stop sucking my thumb. I did it until I was 17, and I never had to wear braces. They tried putting that no nail biting nail polish on me, they tried public humiliation, and constantly telling me, blackmail, and giving me dissaproving looks. Everything just made me feel even more insecure and made me want my "security blanket" even more.

winnybella · 31/05/2012 16:55

YY. I had to wear a brace as well as one side of the roof of my mouth was pushed up.

YABU

Floggingmolly · 31/05/2012 16:56

YABU. It's as bad as a dummy for the developing teeth. I've seen kids who cannot put their top and bottom sets together as their whole jawline has deformed.
Meglet I didn't understand your post. Nursery were bu to stop her, but your ds's school are bu not to? They can't win, can they?

comedycentral · 31/05/2012 16:57

Yabu, you don't know the context.

puds11 · 31/05/2012 16:58

YABU. I nearly had to be in a head brace permanently because of thumb sucking. I always tell me daughter off for putting fingers in her mouth, not just because its unsanitary, but it also looks awful.
I think the nursery worker is well within her rights to tell her to stop, as long as she is not using some fabled horror story to get her to stop.

flatpackhamster · 31/05/2012 16:59

I think you are being unreasonable. The nursery is acting in loco parentis. If you have a problem with that you have two choices - move DD to another nursery or keep her home and look after her yourself.

Bumdrop · 31/05/2012 16:59

Yanbu.
Its a self soothing behaviour.
Shes too young to work on developing alternatives in any meaningful way,
She will just know she wants to suck, and feel,bad when she cant't :(

Olympia2012 · 31/05/2012 17:01

Whoever said about teeth/jaw further up thread is correct!

It causes massive problems. We are correcting them now with ds who is 13!!! you don't want this, believe me!

You should put a stop to it.

JamieandTheOlympicTorch · 31/05/2012 17:03

AFAIK, dummies are better. It looked like DS2 was going to be a finger-sucker and I would have given him a dummy without a problem, but he gave up the sucking after biting himself badly when his first teeth started coming. You can at least take a dummy away.

Rubirosa · 31/05/2012 17:04

Was she told off or just asked to stop? I think nursery workers will be spending a good deal of their time telling children to take fingers out of their mouths/noses/bottoms - it's not very hygienic, is it? Especially when they are then touching toys, tables, food, other people with slobbery hands.

Kayano · 31/05/2012 17:12

From a 27 year old thumb sucker...

YABU

I had to pay a shitliad for cosmetic dentistry for my wedding because of it

Bloody hard habit to break ;P (so I didn't)

Olympia2012 · 31/05/2012 17:13

I would guess your dd is a threadworm carrier too!

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