Cracked thumb from too much sucking - help needed please!

[monkeybumsmum]

Noticed about a week ago that my 16 month old DS had a very dry thumb (the one he sucks when he goes to sleep/gets upset). It's got quite a lot worse in the last few days and yesterday even cracked when he was playing and he got bloody thumbprints everywhere.

I've been putting Vaseline on it, but so far it hasn't helped. Does anybody have any advice on anything else I can use? I know it would be ideal to get him to suck his other thumb instead for a bit, or even stop his sucking altogether but I can't quite see how that would happen. His 'comfort' position is right thumb in mouth, left hand on earlobe so can't see how I could change that...

Any advice/idea's would be most appreciated

I had to prevent DD1 from sucking her finger after the skin started to look very odd. I bought a pair of white cotton gloves from a shop specialising in medical products and made a sort of finger guard by cutting one finger off the glove and cutting down the glove to make two strips. I put loads of moisturiser on her finger and tied the guard on, crossing the ties on the back of her hand. After a couple of days it was much better. She was a little older than your DS, maybe 2 and a bit, and did seem to understand that if we didnt do it her finger was going to get sore. I think I let her suck it a little now and then. I had to repeat the process a couple of times over a month or so.