Thumb-sucking

[Margie32]

My DS is a v keen thumb-sucker, but yesterday he had his 21 month check up and the doctor said that his top and bottom rows of teeth are not matching up, which is mainly due to the thumb-sucking, so we need to stop it now. I should say that I live in Spain, where dummies are considered gifts from god and thumb-sucking is the devil's work. Anyway, my DH is now freaking out and is convinced that we have ruined DS's life by letting him suck his thumb.

My questions are: is it really that bad? And if we do have to try and get him to stop, does anyone have any foolproof ideas on how to do it? I personally think he's still much too young to stop him doing it, but any advice would be gratefully received.

We had a thumb sucker, I was told that until their big teeth started coming through it wasn't a problem. So when she started losing her teeth (Y1 at school) we introduced this.

It certainly isn't something that I would have used on a tiddler, the comfort derived from sucking was far more important at that age than stopping it, but it worked really really well when she understood why we were concerned. She stopped in a matter of weeks. Hope that helps.

Thanks TheMoreItSnows. That thumb guard certainly looks like a great idea for the future, if he hasn't stopped by then. I meant to say in my original post that the doctor even suggested giving him a dummy instead of letting him suck his thumb, which just seemed totally ridiculous to me!

I'm glad you agree that DS is too young at the moment, as that's how I feel too. He is going to become a big brother in a couple of months, and I'm sure he's going to need his thumb for comfort more than ever when DS2 arrives! Plus he's just started nursery, so it's a period of change for him, and I don't want to complicate his life even further at the moment.

Now I just have to convince DH that thumb-sucking is ok for now!

Dummies can be just as much of a problem - in fact more so because although they have to take the thumb out if they want to use their hands, there's no need to remove a dummy so they often end up sucking on them a lot longer. I wouldn't worry about his teeth - it's not his adult ones that are being affected, after all, and the soothing's more important at this point. Even if it does have a small effect on adult teeth it's rare for it to be a massive problem. Lots of adults still suck their thumbs.