Thumb sucking not soothing

[StepsRoadmum]

My DS is nearly 3 months and has recently discovered his thumb. He shows a preference for this form of sucking and even spits out a dummy so he can suck his thumb/hand/fingers. The only problem with this is that it doesn't actually help to soothe him. In fact he often seems more agitated, especially during the night. Has anyone had any experience with this? Do I try to encourage the use of the dummy more, and if so how do I get him to keep it, or do I just persevere and hope the thumb sucking becomes a comfort?

Firstly it's worth bearing in mind that all babies around this age go through a phase of ferocious sucking/chewingvtgeir hands. It's developmental - to do with when babies realise they have hands and that they can move them.

The next stage of development is exploring everything with their mouth. When anything you hand to baby will immediately go to their mouth to be chewed.

So a preference chewing own hands is just a forerunner for this. It's normal, natural stage of development that every baby will go through. While some children will grow up to be thumb suckers, this stage is not an indication of that since its it's just something all babies do.

The fact that baby is not soothed by the sucking would suggest to me this isn't a comfort thing. More a 3 month old discovering they have hands and exploring these new things with their mouth, like all 3 month olds do.

If you have a preference for baby thumb sucking over dummy sucking, then persevere. Baby will need to find a way to suck their hands that forms a vaccume. If there are gaps when baby sucks, they suck in air when trying to comfort suck and do give themself wind. Then once that method is found (sucking two straight fingers, for example), baby needs the fine motor skills to move hands into the best position - a skill that is more for the older (6+ months) baby. It rather depends on the hand position which provides comfort and how simple that is for baby to master.

I'd encourage dummy use more.

Fatedestiny, thanks for the response. He has now mastered thumb sucking and we have had several nights of 7-9 hours straight sleep so I'm glad we persevered as he can now settle himself if he starts to stir. He loves chomping on things that are anywhere near his mouth now but he can't yet hold things and get them to his mouth as he's too young and hasn't developed this skill yet.

That's fantastic news!

I know when my DD finally mastered comfort sucking (it took her a while), her sleep significantly improved immediately too. It's such a good feeling, a relief, to know baby now has easy comfort like that. Great news for your little one.

It really is a relief but now he's starting to show lots of signs of teething so not sure how long the good sleep will last. He masters one thing then something else hits