Thumb sucking, should we be worried

[rm888]

Hi all,

My son (16 weeks) has just sucking is thumb, primarily it seems as a way to get to sleep when placed in his cot (he has always seemed a little agitated in there not matter what we do, but seems to slowly be getting better) Before this, he would wriggle around a bit rubbing his face and head and eventually fall asleep (45 minutes max but that's a different discussion :)) Outside, during his awake time we tend to take his hand out if he does it (which is not often) and give him a toy to shove in his mouth instead.

We did try with the dummy early on, but after about 3 or 4 weeks of him spitting it out at both nap time and bed time, and it seemed to actually stop him sleeping so we go rid of it around 10 weeks, which he seemed to take to very easily and went down easier.

Now, as i have mentioned he has started sucking his thumb for comform and we are concerned that we wont be able to stop him when he is older. He is our first and because of the horror stories of damaged jaws and teeth we are really confused on what to do.

We did, not for very long granted try and swap it for a dummy, but he spits it out and goes for the thumb again, and the times he does keep it in, it seems to wake him up instead of sooth him.

Anyone else have this, should we try and curb it early as in now, or are we being worry warts for no reason?

My eldest started sucking her thumb when she was about 12 weeks, we left her to it. She's now almost 8 and has just broken the habit (we used a fabric thumb guard for her to wear at night - she only sucked to go to sleep). No problems, no worries and no big deal. We left it fairly late because shes not had any teeth/jaw issues and she's only just started to lose her baby teeth. It took her 2 weeks ish to break the habit.

Hi Lizzie,

That's good to hear, and i am glad you managed to wean he aswell.

Out of interest was she a gentle thumb sucker, our one seems to really go at it at the beginning which is the cause for concern, once properly asleep he drops it but its just the hard sucking at the beginning that got us worried at the beginning.