Dummies/soothers, thumbs and mom's breast...

[podmumlet]

I appear to have a very 'sucky' baby who seems to NEED to suckle to self-soothe, whether it be on my breast, on my pinkie finger, or DS's thumb. We have decided we really want to discourage thumb-sucking, and we thought that the need for a dummy/soother would be over by 3 months...

However, my DH is in the other room trying to calm a VERY distraught and HOWLING 3 month old, and the howling breaks out or gets worse everytime he tries to stop DS from sucking a thumb..... It is heart-breaking and very distressing.... Considering we are trying to do the No Cry Sleep Solution, we are failing miserably. :( :(

My question is: does introducing a dummy/soother and then taking it away at a later date, inevitably lead to thumb sucking? Will the baby be so set on suckling that it will find another alternative when the dummy is removed, ie a thumb?

I have posted a similar thread in the sleep forum but am still trying to get to the bottom of this, and DS's hysterical howls booming down the hall and DH's exasperation have me most distressed and saddened... :(

My DS is a thumb sucker. I never managed to stop him and I never offered an alternative such as a dummy. I have no idea how i'm ever going to stop him...

I have a friend whose son had a dummy. When he was 9 months old she suddenly removed the dummy. He cried himself to sleep for a couple of nights and then got over it. He never started sucking his thumb or anything else. It seemed he was young enough to have it removed, but too old to replace it.
Half of me wishes I'd gone down that route too...

I was looking for your post on the Sleep thread to see what other parents thought but couldn't find it.
As a mom of 3 aged 7, 5 and 2 all EBF.
I can't paint this any other way but my intial reaction? Leave your DS alone. You already acknowledge his need to suckle, you don't want a dummy so allow him what nature gave him, his thumb!
How'd you like it say, if everytime you were dozing off someone straightened your left leg, over and over again, pure torture.

I am a big believer in dummies as they can be thrown away (or taken by the dummy fairy!) when toddler doesn't need them anymore, however if thumb or finger sucking gets established you cannot throw them away and it is a very hard habit to break! My 6 year old niece has only just stopped sucking her fingers (and still does it without realising occasionally), because people were commenting at school.

Thanks for the replies ladies.

Treadmillmom - the link to my other thread is here

As I mentioned in my other thread, we have decided to continue discouraging thumb sucking for a few nights (with probable tears, but we will be there to soothe and comfort him in other ways).

We are real softies and are finding this really hard but really want to be consistent in our approach of not going the thumb sucking route. I think inconsistency is incredibly unsettling for babies. That said, if the situation and habit haven't changed after a couple of nights of trying to change the habit, we will try again to introduce a dummy to meet this ongoing suckling need. Thanks RuthChan and buffy13 for sharing your thoughts on this.

We currently have 4 dummies with 2 different teats that we tried in the past. I will get some others ensuring they are a mixture of latex/silicon and orthodontic/cherry/flat shaped.

Thanks again all!

Happy Easter!

I am confused, you are trying to get your 3 month old to self settle but are removing his thumb when he inserts it so help himself self settle??

to not so

Yes, we want our dear son to self-settle but would prefer it not to be with a thumb. He seems to be settling when we play a soothing windchime melody and will re-try introducing a dummy if he still needs to suckle.

My 3 ds's all had dummies. I have to say I didn't much like them pre children but they were all sucky babies and settled easily with them. I removed ds2 and 3's when they were toddlers with no problems and I can't remember what happened with ds1 so it can't have been too traumatic. They have never thumb sucked.