Should I give thumbsucking 15 wk old a dummy?

[chankins]

My 15 wk old Ds sucks his thumb to fall asleep, and sucks it pretty often when awake, tho I think this is partly because he is teething. My other children never had nor needed dummies, and I've never really liked them personally, but my mum says thumb sucking is harder habit to break and will make his teeth stick out! However mil positively hates dummies and thinks him sucking his thumb is really cute as my Dh did it as a baby. Not sure what to do! He looks so adorable when he does it, but its not so cute when a big kid does it is it?

My ds1 never sucked his thumb. Dd and ds2 both did/do. When dd lost her top teeth just before she turned 6 we had a chat and agreed that we didn't want to put the new ones out of line, so she would stop on her 6th b'day and she did!!! It was relatively easy because she was given a new soft toy, so we substituted that for the one she used to suck her thumb with.
ds2 will be more difficult. He'll be 6 next April. It's very instinctive with him. But I once his teeth come out we'll have a bash.

While I absolutely agree with the NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sentiment, the thumb hasn't been all that simple for us as they have both needed another prop (toy/blanket) in order to get the urge to thumb-suck!

It's already been said but WHY WHY WHY would you give your dc a piece of plastic to shove in their mouths instead of letting them do something that comes naturally and instinctively. I'm sure dummies can cause as much of a problem with teeth development as thumbs can, I'm sure we all have anecdotal evidence of both scenarios, i just can't believe people would encourage a baby to stop sucking its thumb and have a dummy instead. Weird, IMO. Don't do it!!!!!

i still suck my thumb at night and when I am upset. Nowt wrong with my jaw my teeth slightly crooked though. I do wish my dps had tried harder to stop it when i was younger though...

Hello, can't believe so many people have answered this thread - but thanks ever so much, its given me a lot to think about. Spoke to HV today and she seems to think dummies are marginally worse for muscle and speech development and are more of a pain what with losing them becoming dependent etc...tho of course any sucking is a double edged sword and could have consequences later. To be honest I'm not gonna stress about it anymore, he only does it to drop off which as I'm bf is better in my opinion than him needing to feed to fall asleep. Also think a lot of his suckiness is down to teething, and like a lot of you have said I can always tackle it with him later if it becomes a bigger problem. Good luck with your daughter, divorcee, and thanks for the warning.