Ds sucks his fingers and the dentist says he has to stop - but how?

[PrettyCandles]

He's nearly 5, has been very cooperative in stopping sucking during the day, and only sucks his fingers to go to sleep. The trouble is that he puts his fingers in his mouth in his sleep, so even were he to go to sleep without sucking, he can't stop himself while he is asleep, can he?

Nail biter stuff Going through this with DS1 right now because of thumb sucking and ruined alignment of teeth.

Is that Bitter Aloes? Are you doing it with his understanding and cooperation? How's it going?

We're still working on daytime - he does it completely unconsiously. It is with his understanding and co-operation (a little reluctant but he does understand why he has to do it). It's even more important now his adult teeth are coming through so I'm going to have to get tougher

I got something called "nail biter" from Super Drug. Over by all the manicure things.

if he's only 4 its a bit early to be seriously worried about it. it's when his adult teeth come through that it can affect the alignment ( but even without that element there is still a chance he may need braces for something else) it is very difficult to stop a child doing this at night because its subconcious and making a big deal of it can have adverse effects (ie he does it more for security) in my experience a tiny handful of children are still doing it at the stage when it is of concern, most having given up the habit of their own accord with gentle persuassion (they simply grow out of it)generally it is pretty sucessful if you have already conquered the day time it will naturally progress to night to

Sorry, chicagomum, but that's not the case. DS1 has reshaped his jaw by sucking his thumb and this was evident by the time he was 3.5. I wish I'd got seriously worried about it long before now.

that is an unusual situation soupdragon, its usually the case that thumb/finger sucking causes protrusion of the upper front teeth and cessation before the teeth are fully erupted can allow the problem to rectify itself

He's pulled the front ones forward, pushed the lower ones back and reshaped the upper jaw where (presumably) he's got leverage with his thumb behind and finger hooked over his nose.

I sucked my thumb til I was 8 or so and had no dental problems whatsoever so I don't know how he's managed it. My only consolation is that he would probably have needed braces anyway since both my brothers and DH did. My only hope is that by reshaping his own jaw his created more room for his teeth. Time will tell

The dentist says that both ds and dd (thumbsucking) have reshaped their jaws, not just their teeth postiions. OTOH, because they both have it, and they both have an odd malocclusion (?) where their upper right canine fits behind the lower right one, then it could just be genetic.

I certainly won't make a big deal of it with ds. With his enthusiastic co-operation I've painted the nails on his sucking fingers different colours and promised him a bottle of any colour nailvarnish of his choice if he manages to stop sucking in his sleep.

God knows whose genes though! Dh and I both have very tidy-looking teeth.

I had a chronic thumb sucker and tried EVERYTHING. It used to drive me crazy cos I could see his teeth were starting to stick out. The problem was he did manage to stop in the day time but night time was a different story. I did the yukky tasting stuff, and socks, and sticker charts, and bribes (I mean incentives :P). I even went online and showed him what would happen to his teeth if he continued. Mean I know but I was desperate. Anyway, in my search online I found this ... www.thumbguard.com.au. It seemed kinda pricey but when I thought about how much I had already spent on stuff to try to stop it, not to mention the emotions both he and I had spent, and I was desperate. I figured it seemed the least traumatic so I just went ahead and bought it and OMG it worked! He only wore it at night cos day wasn?t a problem, and within a month he didn?t need or want to suck his thumb anymore. Even better I can see a difference in his teeth structure.

Now if only there was something I could buy to get rid of his other annoying habits :P

Good luck!