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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

When will she find her thumb?

13 replies

Tiny1 · 04/10/2002 14:30

My daughter is 3 months old and is still desparately trying to find her thumb. It doesn't help that she tucks it behind her finger! She is using a dummy to go to sleep but I would be much happier for her to suck her thumb as she cries in the night when she is trying to find it again. I wonder also if she will take to her thumb over her dummy. Will she find her thumb soon?! Has anyone else's baby gone from a dummy to a thumb?

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threeangels · 04/10/2002 15:16

Hi Tiny1 - I dont really have any advice on the thumb sucking issue because all my children used pacifiers. Till this day my ds still wakes up in the middle of the night trying to find his pacifier. To help with this situation I always keep a number of them at the top and sides of his crib. That way hell be able to reach and find one himself. I'm hopeing to brake him from it soon though.

ionesmum · 04/10/2002 15:50

Hello, Tiny1. My dd (7 mo) uses a dummy for sleep but has also found her thumb now. I think that before this her thumb was too small for her to get any comfort from. She is currently using her thumb by day and the dummy at night, I'm hoping that I will be able to encourage her to change over soon but at the moment I'm more interested in sleeping! She can usually find and replace her dummy for herself now and Threeangels' idea of having several is a good one. Best of luck!

mollipops · 05/10/2002 08:12

Tiny1, I was very keen for my dd to use her thumb too, as she didn't like a dummy (and to be honest, neither did I!), and she did find it but I can't remember at what age - I seem to recall it was quite early. On the other side of things though, we are still battling with the thumb-addiction at age almost 6 yrs! She stopped sucking in the day time earlier this year, and only sucks at night to fall asleep...but she had chicken pox a couple of weeks ago and seems to have relapsed into old habits during the day... Just another perspective!

IME, if your dd wants to suck her thumb, she will; if she prefers a dummy, then she will use that instead. And at least you can throw them away when she gets older! Don't they make dummies that clip onto a baby's clothing? Would that help?

Original poster

Tiny1 · 05/10/2002 09:42

Hi all, thanks for your messages and advice. I will keep my fingers crossed!

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manna · 05/10/2002 10:40

mine did around 4 mnths - and swapped from dummy to thumb easily. According to books, 90% kids drop the habit by 4, so it's not TOO much of a worry - yet......

Eulalia · 05/10/2002 12:33

She may not want to suck her thumb at all - not all kids do, and I'd guess particularly not if she had a dummy. I'd not worry as long as she is sleeping.

Bugsy · 29/10/2002 13:09

Tiny1, if you are still there did you make any progress with the thumb? My dd is 6 months old and I want her to suck her thumb. Yes, I know all the bad things about it but I come from a family of thumbsuckers, none of whom have had to wear a brace. I loathe dummies and loathe getting up 2-8 times in the night to stick it back in but dd is so sucky and finds it impossible to get off to sleep without sucking on something. I keep trying to poke her thumb in her mouth but she doesn't seem able to keep it in there. Is there any hope that she'll find it?

prufrock · 29/10/2002 13:36

My dd had a dummy v. occasionally up to 3 months, then found her fingers, not her thumb. She now sucks the 3rd and 4th fingers of her left hand, and it seems to be easier to keep these in than her thumb would be.

Original poster

Tiny1 · 04/11/2002 11:28

Hi, I'm still here and still waiting!! She is starting to suck on it but is still not entirely sure about her thumb yet. She is also sucking her fingers but when she is very tired nothing but her dummy will do. I think she is starting to realise what her dummy is as she has begun to take it out of her mouth and then put it back in. I am wondering whether to take it away from her now before she becomes even more dependent as I know that she would suck her thumb if there was no other option..;

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ellasmum · 04/11/2002 14:00

Hi Tiny1 - my DD is now 7 months old and never really found her thumb (well obviously she knows it is there!!!). At about 3 months she looked like she was going to start sucking it but somehow it never happened. She wouldn't take a dummy either, maybe some babies don't need anything to suck to get to sleep??

Having said that she was a really poor sleeper in the early days and I prayed she would suck her thumb.

Cha · 04/11/2002 14:49

My dd found it at about 2 months which was fantastic as she was not a good sleeper and it used to soothe her to sleep. Unfortunately at 4 months she 'lost' it again (I think it was having a stuffy nose with a cold) and she's never sucked anything since. Hence back to bad night's sleep. Hey ho.

Lizzer · 11/11/2002 10:44

Hi Tiny1, I don't want to worry you but (as much as I hate them) I thought dummies were better for childrens teeth than if they sucked their thumb? I thought that now dummies are orthodonic they are designed to protect the growing teeth and won't mis-shape them but thumbs are really bad for creating 'buck' teeth... I wouldn't push it with the thumb but I know how you must be feeling if you don't want your child to have a dummy for very long. I'd imagine you'd have to take it away now-ish if you don't want to get her hooked on one? I hope she begins sleeping well for you. And, just to add to the other stories, my dd never had dummy or thumb and she wasn't a bad sleeper at all after 6 months. Hang on in there!

chiara71 · 11/11/2002 14:16

Tiny1

dd found her thumb at barely 3 months of age, and she loves it so much that i'm starting to worry (she's now 18m, by the way I sucked my thumb until I was 11, so I know what I'm talking about).
I think if I could have chosen I would have chosen a dummy, because it seems easier to control, you can 'adminster' it more or less when you want to (at least with some babies). Some days dd seems to have her thumb permanently stuck in her mouth!!

On the positive side, she can confort herself very easily without depending on me all the time and she does sleep quite well.

At the end of the day I don't think you can do much about it, I was giving her a dummy initially but I always found her asleep with her thumb in instead, so it was HER choice really.

Good luck anyway!!!

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