what's best - hand/thumb sucking or a dummy?

[AmandaWJ]

DD is 8 weeks and has started to suck her hands rather a lot, which i am quite happy about as i don't want to give her a dummy, however a few people have now said that hand/thumb sucking is not good but they didn't really say why other than its harder to stop a child thumb sucking than it is to stop a dummy. does anyone have any opinions? i know dummies can interfere with tooth development and i really don't want to give DD a dummy if i can help it. one HV actually encouraged hand sucking while another discouraged it. i personally don't see a problem with it and i thought all babies sucked on their hands! can anyone shed any more light on this? thanks in advance :)

I dont think you can stop them if they want to suck their thumbs.Both of mine were pointed out in scans sucking their thumbs, DD2 on a wekkly basis! We tried dummies for them both but they were rejected. 5yo still sucks hers to get to sleep, as does 2yo. I dont intend todo anything about it till I am told by the dentist - apparently, there are different ways of positioning the thumb and one is more damaging to teeth thatn the other.

A husband of one of my friends is a very senior dentist (he trains dentists, and travels the world with his research). He gave his children a dummy and I once asked him what he thought. He told me that he had never seen any problems occur as a result of dummy sucking, but he had seen several as a result of thumb sucking (and he's not a normal dentist, so he only deals with severe cases) and so his advice was to never encourage the thumb.

The way I see it, it's decision as one of health / medical reasons Vs aesthetics. So I guess it depends how much superficial things really bother you.

"Drives us crackers and we spend a lot of time shouting "thumb" at her to take it out"

This is the story of my childhood. It was HORRIBLE! Please stop terrorizing her like that! If she wants to suck her thumb, she will. I'm 31 and I still suck mine from time to time.

i suck mine at 44 - has been a godsend!

thumb sucking looks cuter, but a dummy you can get rid of. I cannot get my 4 year old to stop sucking her thumb and its giving her a real overbite, but it was easy to get rid of my sons dummy.
Plus thumb suckers are much much more prone to getting worms

Dummy every time.

People who are worried about looking 'common' will of course say thumb, but dummy sucking can be stopped a lot easier [if ever] than thumbsucking.

I have no problem with dummies. I don't think they are an indication of class! Dummies are designed not to interfere with teeth and are usually stopped well before adult teeth come in. I gave my DD a dummy to stop her sucking her thumb and now she's 3.5 and we are trying to get rid of the dummy she sucks her thumb.

My sister is 34 and still sucks her thumb - she has a very impressive professional job and still sucks her thumb at work when tired! She also has amazing teeth.